


Not this time

by Rowboat_Girlyman



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anime Spoilers, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Manga Spoilers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2019-10-12 19:11:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 74,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17473352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rowboat_Girlyman/pseuds/Rowboat_Girlyman
Summary: When Armin and Mikasa are given the chance to fix the mistakes of the past they will do everything they can to save their friends.Even if they need to abandon their very humanity to do it.





	1. I'm dreaming right?

**Author's Note:**

> Hello All,
> 
> This is my second attempt at a fanfic and first serious one.  
> I've always been a bit of a sucker for time travel fix-it stories and I enjoy stories that have a bit of a darker side to it. 
> 
> Hopefully I can mix the two in this story 
> 
> Also WARNING! This story will contain spoilers for the Manga and Anime so if you don't want to be spoiled turn back now.

Darkness

Silence

Emptiness

 

A flicker

Noise

Screams

 

“Murderer”

“Monster”

“Traitor”

“Useless”

“I always hated you.”

 

Steam

Fire

Blood

Burning

Pain

Pain

 **Pain**  

 

Armin lurched up, breathing erratically and grasping at his chest, “what was that?” he thought as he looked around “and where am I?”.

He was thoroughly confused last thing he remembered was him and Mikasa being placed in a jail cell by Eren and his ‘Yeagerists’. At that Armin felt a spike of anger as the memories of how Eren had treated them, how could he say those things to Mikasa, how could he hurt her like that?!

He forced down those painful memories, realising that figuring out where exactly he was should be his main priority. It was dark but he could make out the first light of dawn passing through a window, “So, I’m above ground” this only caused more confusion, there was no way the Yeagerists didn’t know about his ‘ability’, and so they must have known that placing him above ground would allow him to transform without the risk of being crushed.

He looked down noting he was laying on a bed, the firmness (and itchiness) of it letting him know it was definitely military and the presence of other beds and their occupants indicated this was most likely a barracks.

Had he been moved in the night?

Armin may not have been the lightest sleeper in the survey corps, but there was no way he was picked up and moved in the night without waking up, say nothing of the fuss Mikasa, Connie or Jean would raise if they tried to take Armin in the night.

Speaking of other occupants, he squinted through the darkness, trying to make out any faces, most where either facing away or hidden under covers. However, Armin noticed that the people he could see seemed quite small and young “Must be the new cadets, they were stationed in Shiganshina, so at least I’m still in the district.”.

“Ok, think… think” he whispered to himself “I’m above ground, likely in the cadet barracks. I must have been drugged and moved in this night.” That solved the how and the where but not the why. His mind was racing trying to understand why he was here, was this some kind of bizarre interrogation technique to confuse and disorientate him so he might reveal Zeke and Levi’s location? If so, it was a dangerous gambit, and he could now shift into his titan form without the fear of being crushed or harming his friends.

He didn’t want to hurt the new Cadets but if he had to choose between them and saving his friends, his family, he would not hesitate. He had killed a woman to save Jean; he had devastated the Marleyan fleet and harbour to bring Eren home and…

And he had punch Eren for hurting Mikasa.

 

This time he didn’t need to push those painful memories away as he was interrupted by the door being kicked open.

“GOOD MORNING, MAGGOTS! I HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED YOUR LIE IN! GET YOUR LAZY ARSES UP AND GET TO THE TRAINING FIELD. NOW” screamed a very irate Keith Shadis.

It may have been 4 years since Armin was a cadet but the muscle memory of Shadis screaming at them to get up kicked in before his brain did as he, along with all the other cadets, shot up and started throwing on his uniform which was laid out at the end of his bed ready to be quickly thrown on just like he had it during his own cadet days.

 

After rapidly throwing on his uniform and starting to walk towards the door Armin hesitated, everything seemed wrong, out of place. The room seemed too big, the bed too large, yet the uniform was the right size, despite it having the cross-swords of the cadets rather than the wings of freedom of the scouts it fitted perfectly. As one of the shortest soldiers in the scouts (only Levi was smaller) his uniform needed to be adjusted for even the smallest size available to properly fit him, even as a cadet his uniform had to be adjusted.

There was no way that this uniform should be able to fit him, and yet it did.

Armin had always been observant; it’s what allowed him to find out the Female Titan’s identity and let him figure out how to defeat the Colossal Titan when they retook wall Maria, he noticed the little things that others would miss.

All the things he had noticed since waking up had led him to one definitive conclusion that something was very, VERY, wrong here.

 

A hand grasped his shoulder, and Armin nearly jumped out of his skin. He quickly spun around, face paling and eyes widening in shock and disbelief at the sight before him.

“You alright, Armin? You look like you’ve seen a ghost?” asked a concerned, 13-year-old Eren Yeager.

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out” was all that was going through Armin’s mind as he stood to attention in the training field surrounded by ghosts.

After stammering out some excuse about bad dreams to Eren, he had fled the barracks only to run straight into a young Jean and Marco.

“Hey! Watch it, Arlert” yelled Jean. Armin was too shocked to say anything but was fortunately saved by Marco “Don’t be a dick, Jean. It was an accident. Anyway, Armin has the right idea, if we don’t hurry up Shadis will make us run laps until we throw up… again”

“This is a dream, a really weird dream. It has to be. Any moment now I will wake up back in that cell.” He vaguely hears Shadis telling them what they will be doing in training that day, but he doesn’t pay any attention. All around him are people who have been dead for years; Mina, Franz, Hannah, Thomas, Marco and countless others who faces and names had been burnt into Armin’s memories after the horrors of Trost.

He feels his heart give a painful lurch as he sees Sasha only a few metres away nibbling on a piece of bread, she had been the most recent person of his family to have been ripped away from him.

“If this is a dream, it’s a cruel one.” he thinks bitterly, showing him everyone he once knew in happier, simpler times were their only concern was not getting on Shadis’s Shit List. Why was he dreaming of this? It would only make the pain worse when he woke up, and they were still gone.

 

He was dimly aware of Shadis dismissing them and followed the other cadets towards the mess hall for breakfast, deciding that simply going along with this scarily realistic dream was a better idea than having a full-on panic attack/mental breakdown at what was happening.

Armin let all the other cadets rush past him, he was too deep in thought to keep up with the others “Why haven’t I woken up yet?” he was aware he was dreaming, he must be, and had pinched himself several times, yet he was still here. “I want to wake up now” he mumbled to himself.

As he slowly approached the mess hall, he suddenly found a hand clamped firmly around his mouth, muffling his cry of panic, and was dragged behind one of the outhouses.

He struggled against the iron grip, but he had never been that strong so he couldn’t breakaway. Once he had been dragged out of sight of any possible witness, he heard a familiar voice speak quietly into his ear “Armin, please calm down, it’s just me.” Armin stopped his struggle as he turned to look at a young Mikasa who looked every bit as confused as he felt.

“Armin, what on Earth is going on right now? How are we back in training, and how is everyone still alive? And why is everyone 13 again?!”

...

...

"Oh. I'm not dreaming this, am I?"


	2. Planning Ahead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so I know I said updates might be erratic but this chapter is an exception. Looking back over the last chapter I though it would be a good idea to expand a bit more on what will be coming.
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Cheers

In the end, neither Armin or Mikasa made it to breakfast that day; they spent that time desperately trying to throw together a rough idea of what the hell was happening. Armin came up with a theory that somehow their memories had been sent back to their younger bodies the only explanation as to how was that it had something to do with the ‘Paths’ mentioned in Grisha’s diaries which connect all Eldians across space and time.

The next question was what they would do now? They knew all about the fake king, the titan shifters, Krista real identity, and what was waiting for them outside the walls. But even with this knowledge, would the two of them be able to save their friends and people?

They needed a plan before they could deal with the magnitude of challenges facing them, so they agreed to play along with the other cadets for now.

 

Before they could continue their discussion, they were interrupted “There you two are! You missed breakfast” Eren threw them both a bread roll “Had to fight off potato girl to get these, so you best be thankful.” His laughs slowly died out as he looked at the faces of his two dearest friends.

“What’s wrong? Has something happened, did Horseface doing something?!”

“N..No, nothing happened. We’re fine, honestly Eren.”

“Rubbish! You both look pale and…”

“Armin said we’re fine Eren. Come on; we have hand to hand combat training” Mikasa interrupted before grabbing Armin and headed off towards the training field. Clearly, Eren’s hurtful words from the day before (or in several years) were still on her mind.

 

* * *

 

 

When they reached the field, Shadis had paired everyone off to practice their grapples and throws. Jean with Marco, Reiner with Bertholdt, Armin with Mikasa and Eren with Annie. That last pairing caused Armin and Mikasa to tense up, and they had to stop themselves from stepping forward.

While they were both upset with what Eren had said and done to them, they both still cared deeply for him and seeing him being placed within arm’s reach of the traitorous Female Titan was a disturbing notion. Eren, who was oblivious to the danger he was in, threw himself into training headfirst like he always did.

They knew Annie wouldn’t reveal herself as she had no idea about Eren’s own ability, but it wasn’t much comfort for the two time-travellers. They kept an eye on them as they moved to a quieter corner of the field to continue the discussion about their situation.

“We can’t let them hurt anyone Armin. We have to stop them” her eyes darting towards the traitorous trio.

“I know, but we can’t just kill them.”

A flash of anger spread across Mikasa’s face “Armin, they’ve already killed thousands of people, they destroyed our home, and they're going to kill even more if they have the chance” she hissed.

“I know! What I meant was that we can’t just kill them, because if we do that their powers will be given to a random new-born child. We’re going to need their abilities if we are to stand any chance against the outside world.”

She calmed noticeably at that “Fine, so what do we do?”

“Well…” Armin looked deep in thought “we’ll have to deal with them one at a time and to make it look like an accident. If they become suspicious and think their secret is out it could be disastrous.”

“Firstly, we need to get some titan spinal fluid so that we can secure their shifting abilities.”

“How are we going to get that? We can’t exactly jump over the wall and round up some titans to get some from.”

Armin looked around double-checking no one was listening in “Historia's father. Her family have been passing the founding titan down for a century, and we know he had at least two injections, so there is a good chance he has some more or knows how to make it. The Reiss’s chapel is in the North beyond the Orvud District.”

Mikasa looked pensive “So we will have to wait until we do our winter training in the north or go AWOL for a few days to get it. Going AWOL would be quicker and give us more time to plan, but we could get kicked out of the military if we got caught.”

“ARLERT! ACKERMAN! STOP CHATTING AND GET FIGHTING!” roared Shadis from across the field.

“We’ll talk later.” Armin said as he put up his fists.

 

* * *

One week later

Keith Shadis stared into his glass of wine, as he swirled the liquid. It had been six months since the 104th cadets started their training, so it was time for his first bi-annual report to his superiors. He had to inform them about the number of dropouts since training began, the strengths and weakness of the remaining recruits, and who he believed would be in the top 10 when they graduate.

Most of the dropouts had done so within the first two weeks, not being able to deal with the stress and strain of military life. Of the remaining recruits, he wasn’t sure who would reach the top 10; however, there were a few cadets who stood head and shoulders above the rest either due to their physical prowess or intelligence.

So far, his finest cadet was, without a doubt, Mikasa Ackerman. She was a natural at almost everything; hand to hand combat, survival training, 3D manoeuvrability training. She rarely made a mistake, and on the few occasions she had they had never happened again, she had almost superhuman strength and stamina and could follow orders to the letter.

She was, in short, the perfect soldier. However, for reasons unknown to Keith, it seems that in the last week she had somehow become even better, she flew through the air with a finesse that would make most experienced soldiers jealous. He had seen her pull off mid-air stunts that he doubted anyone outside the veterans of the scouting legion could do and yet she did all of this with an aura of bored repetitiveness that came with years of experience.

 

Keith had no idea what had caused this sudden improvement, the only thing seemingly different about her was that rather than being Yeager’s shadow, she had become Arlert’s. While the three of them still ate and trained together, there was definitely some divide between the three.

Yeager pushed himself as hard as he could, slowly but surely improving. He would interact with the other cadets, both positive and negative interactions, making friends and rivals to push himself even harder.

But Arlert and Ackerman held back. They didn’t ignore the other cadets, but they made no great effort to widen their group of friends. They trusted each other and would follow each other’s orders and commands in team activities without question. He knew they came from Shiganshina and lived as orphaned refugees for two years before joining the military, and it wasn’t unexpected for them to have some level of co-dependency after what they had been through.

The issue was that this new attachment had suddenly started when Ackerman underwent her improvement… and she wasn’t the only one.

While Ackerman had gone from outstanding to magnificent Arlert had gone from being a mediocre soldier at best to top 10 material (maybe the lower half but still one of the best). While he lacked the finesse of his female friend, he was no slouch in the air. He times the bursts of his gas to give him the best results, completing obstacle courses only using a fraction of the gas used by the others.

But the most significant change had to be his personality; when he joined, Keith fully expected him to drop out within a week. He was physically weak, shy and easily pushed around when his friends weren’t present. Yet he had stuck it out ignoring the jibes and insults from other cadets while stubbornly pushing on through his own inadequacies, it was… admirable.

But now Arlert was more assertive, confident and had a natural ability to strategise and plan. He now had an air of authority around him, which he lacked two weeks ago.

 

But what truly stood out about both of them was their eyes. Keith had heard that the eyes are the windows to the soul, he had never brought into that crap, but when he looked at them, he could see both of them he could see pain and suffering beyond imagining, more than any other Shiganshina refugee, more than any 13-year olds should have ever experienced.

When he first looked into their eyes, for the first time since he left the scouts where he had seen friends and comrades torn apart and eaten, he felt truly disturbed.

Keith knocked back his drink and placed the glass on the table.

_“These three years will be very interesting.”_


	3. Lets go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A journey and a discussion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, 
> 
> Just a quick word, I haven't got a set upload schedule, but I personally would like to upload two chapters a week, but don't hold me to that!

In the end they had decided that waiting until winter training was not feasible, they wouldn’t leave for the northern training course for several months and once they were there, they would be closely watched by both the northern and southern training instructors to make sure no one wandered off into the snow and froze to death.

Armin had calculated that even if they could get a strong horse to carry them, they could travel to the Chapel and back in about 16 hours if they rode with only minimal stops. That would give them several hours to rest the horse while they infiltrated and searched the chapel and its crystal cave for the spinal fluid. If they leave on the right day and at the right time, they could complete their mission without their absence being noted.

There were three annual holidays celebrate across the walls: Maria’s Remembrance, Day of the Rose and Saint Sina. On these days everyone, even the cadets, was given the day off to do as they please. Usually, the 104th cadets would either visit family, spend the day in Trost or catch up on some much-needed sleep.

The next such holiday was Maria’s Remembrance, which was only a week away. This gave Armin and Mikasa time to gather the supplies needed for their mission; Armin would get food and water for the trip, along with some hooded cloaks to obscure their identities, while Mikasa had told Armin she would get the horse and a weapon.

Despite them being the most difficult things to obtain Armin didn’t doubt her for a second, he had learnt long ago that when Mikasa was determined to do something, she would do it, regardless of how impossible such a thing should be for mere mortals.

 

* * *

 

 

The cloaks had been easy to get; he found some old, unmarked cloaks in an old storage hut. He quickly ‘borrowed’ them and hid under his bed. The food had been more of a challenge. Food supplies were stored in a locked pantry attached to the kitchen, and he decided that rather than trying his luck with sneaking in he would go to the resident expert in the 104th. 

He found her, naturally walking back from the kitchen towards the girl’s barracks, steamed potato in hand.

“Hey, Sasha.” The grief he felt when seeing and talking to her had started to fade since they had ‘returned’, the knowledge that they could save her had given him hope “I have a favour to ask. You know how to get into the kitchen pantry, right?”

She wiped specks of food off her mouth before unashamedly looking around, making sure Shadis wasn’t in earshot. “I might do, depends on what you need?” she replied with a sly smile. Armin felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards at Sasha easy go lucky behaviour “I need enough to fill this.” He passed a small basket over to her Sasha.

She took the basket and looked over it, assessing how much food it could hold. “Yeah, I can do that, but on one condition.” She stepped forward, leaning over him “Tell me, Mr Arlert, are you taking someone out for a picnic?”

Armin may have been a battle-hardened soldier, he had seen death and destruction on a scale unimaginable, and yet a 13-year-old Sasha asking him if he’s taking someone on a date completely breaks his composure. “W…what?! No, no I…” he stammers and splutters out, blushing like a tomato.

Sasha breaks into laughter, clutching her stomach. “Oh Armin, you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed. Calm down, I’m only teasing.” Wiping away her tears of laughter, “I’ll get you the food. When do you need it for?”

Still flustered from Sasha’s teasing Armin quickly replied, “I need it for Remembrance day.”

Sasha nodded still smiling before they parted ways.

 

* * *

 

A few days later - Night before Maria’s Remembrance

They could feel the excitement in the air as the other cadets prepared for their day off; Connie, Reiner and Jean had press-ganged/challenged Eren into joining them for a trip to Trost, to prove his manliness by seeing who can drink the most alcohol. Apparently Jean knew a place where the acceptable drinking age was anyone who had the cash to spend. Eren had asked them both to come along, but they had declined, saying they had other things planned, this had upset Eren as he had walked off in a huff.

They didn’t like having to push Eren away, but everything they were doing what for him. They knew Eren wouldn’t understand; he was so passionate and headstrong, if they told him the truth about the shifter trio, he would probably throw himself at them with whatever he could reach trying to kill them.

They watched him jump into the wagon leaving for Trost with heavy hearts, they didn’t want to hurt him, but they knew that if he stayed at the training ground, he would notice their absence which would have led to many difficult questions being asked.

 

As the wagon passed through the boundary fence, they turned and walked towards the boy’s barracks, where they would undertake one final inventory check as they waited for the cover of night. When the sun finally dipped below the horizon, they donned their cloaks and headed towards the nearby forest, where the horse was being kept.

Mikasa climbed onto the horse and took the reins, offering a hand to help Armin up. “Ready Armin?” Armin settled behind her after securing the supplies, giving her a nod “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

 

 

Several hours later

They had ridden mostly in silence; only stopping once to switch positions giving Mikasa a chance to rest from guiding the horse. The gravity of the situation was immense, and if they succeeded in this, it would be the first step in changing the future for the better.

While the silence wasn’t awkward or oppressive, Armin still felt the need to break it; he needed to ask a question which had been on his mind for a while.

“Mikasa,” he said softly “we need to talk about what we are going after we get the fluid. Before we go after the traitors, we need to decide who will inherit their powers?”

Mikasa didn’t reply immediately, and he hadn’t expected her to, after all, he had basically asked her who was going to inherit a 13 year-long death sentence.

Armin looked over his shoulder at her seeing her staring at the moonlit sky deep in thought, the quiet of the night only disturbed by the horse’s galloping.

In a quiet, slow voice, she eventually answered “We will. We are the only ones strong enough.”

He knew what she meant; they would have to plot, murder, assassinate and lie. They would have to abandon their very humanity to save the people they loved.

Armin hadn’t been surprised, he had also come to that conclusion, but he had wanted to know what she thought.

Swallowing the lump in his throat he asked, “You know what that means right, what we would have to do and what we would give up?” his tone wasn’t dissuasive or accusatory, he just wanted to make sure she understood what they would be doing.

Slowly, she looked away from the night sky and looked directly at Armin.

“When we found out about the curse, after Shiganshina, I was distraught. No matter how hard I fought, how many people or titans I killed, I wouldn’t be able to keep you, and Eren save. You were both going to die, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I would have lost my family for the third time.”

She was quiet for a few moments before she started again “Even now if we do everything right; stopping the traitors, defeating Marley and finally achieving peace, Eren will still die.”

“Even after what he said to me, to us, I can’t imagine a future without him by our side or us at his.”

Armin saw a small, pained smile peak above her scarf, “Hannes told us we would always be at his side, always there for him, even when he didn’t want us to be. He was right, we should be at his side, no matter what."

"Even to the end.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed this, and I hope the last bit with Mikasa's speech wasn't to cringey. Just a heads up things will start picking up next chapter as plans come to fruition.
> 
> Also on a different note I didn't realize just how big the walls were in AoT, the map I have been using to find out where places are have the diameter (Trost to the northern district of Utopia) of wall Rose at 760km (don't know if that's entirely accurate as it's a fan map), which for a base of reference is a longer distance of that between London and Edinburgh.  
> This basically means that the journey that AM are undertaking wouldn't take 16 hours on horse back, it would likely take nearly week to complete (as the horse and them would need to stop and rest) but for the sake of this story imagine its a magical horse or something lol


	4. Unexpected Opportunities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning the follow chapter is where this story starts to get dark.  
> This chapter has scenes of torture, not massively graphic but I thought I would give you a warning just in case.

Rod Reiss sat alone in the chapel, head in his hands. It had been three years to the day when he failed in his duty as a king, as a father.

His wife, a more loving and loyal spouse than he had even been, his brave sons; Dirk and Urklyn and his wonderful daughters; Abel, Florian and Frieda. All of them gone, wiped out by one man, the outsider.

Even now, three years after the fact, Rod still didn’t understand how that man had found them, how he had known the truth about his family and the founding titan. He claimed to have come from a land outside the walls, and had begged them to help him, to use the founding titan to _“liberate the Eldian people from oppression”._

But Frieda had refused, telling the man that they deserved their fate for the crimes they had committed.

The man had looked shocked, then angry and finally remorseful. He apologised and pulled out a small knife then ran it across his palm. A deafening boom and blinding light filled the cave as a 15m tall Titan appeared before them, his torso was vast, completely disproportional for his arms. Its face was the very picture of anger and rage. It let out a roar as Frieda bit down on her hand.

She tried to fight the Titan, but she was young and inexperienced, and his titan was larger and stronger. After a quick but brutal fight, the man bit down on Frieda’s nape, ending his oldest daughter’s life in a single instant. Not satisfied with her murder, the man then turned to the surviving members of the Reiss family, and with his fists and feet, he slaughtered them all.

And he, their husband and father, the man who should have protected them, ran like a coward.

He ran for his life, not once looking back until he had left the cave and then the chapel, he only stopped running when he reached the woods just in time to see the Titan burst from underneath the chapel destroying it with as much ease as he had to Rod’s family.

 

He was glad he’d left his MP guards behind at his home, it wouldn’t do for them to see the true King of the walls crying and sobbing into his hands. He pulled out a small cloth to dry his face and tried to pull himself together, he had a meeting with ‘King’ Fritz later, and it wouldn’t do for him to look so unpresentable.

Suddenly Rod felt a gust of cold air brush against the back of his neck. He turned around to see one of the chapel doors slightly ajar. He furrowed his brow, he was sure he had closed the door when he entered, and it wasn’t windy enough for the door to be blown open. Rising to his feet, Rod slowly walked toward the open door, his footsteps echoing in the empty church.

As he reached the entrance, he quickly peaked out, looking into the sky. It had been early morning when he arrived, and from the position of the sun, he must have been here for at least a few hours. He pushed the door shut, knowing he would have to leave soon a king’s duty never ends, even a secret one.

Taking a step back, he started to turn to retake his seat on the front pew. But out of the corner of his eye, he saw something, a flash of silver being swung toward him. He tried to move out the way, but Rod was no soldier, his reactions were nowhere near fast enough. As the thing impacted against his head, he felt the briefest explosion of pain before he lost consciousness and slumped onto the floor.

Rod Reiss never saw the two cloaked figures standing behind him, one holding a knife and the other a now slightly bent silver candlestick.

 

* * *

 

 

Groggily, Rod started to regain consciousness, and he tried to open his eyes abut all he could see was darkness. He tried to reach up to his face to investigate his lack of sight but found his arms had been tied down to something.

A sense of panic and dread rose within him, Rod jerks his arms trying to break his bonds, but he had no luck, they were firmly secured.

“Ah Mr Reiss, you’re awake. Good, I was worried I might have hit you too hard.” A voice rung out, stopping his struggling.

“I have to admit Mr Reiss; I didn’t expect to see you here. But I’m glad you are here, it will make everything so much easier.”

 

“W…who are you? What do you want from me? Is it money? I’m sure we could come to an agreement”

  

“Mr Reiss, if I wanted you to know who I was, I wouldn’t have blindfolded you. As for what I want well, I’m after something far more valuable than money. I want information.” This time the voice came from his left only inches away from his ear. Whoever was holding him hostage was walking around him, trying to disorientate and intimidate him. It was working.

“I am going to ask you some questions, Mr Reiss, and you will answer them truthfully, understand?”

Knowing that without his guards there wasn’t much Rod could do, he nodded deciding it was safer to do as the person said.

“Excellent, now let’s start with an easy one, shall we? Where is the King?”

“The King? He’s in the royal palace in Mitras. Why do” before Rod could finish, he was punched so hard across the face both he and the chair he was tied to fell over with a crash. Moaning and spitting out blood Rod barely heard the voice over the throbbing pain in his face.

“ _Tut, tut._ I told you to tell me the truth, Mr Reiss. My good friend here doesn’t like being lied to, they’ve never had any patience for liars. But don’t worry, I won’t bother asking again, after all, I know exactly where the King is. He’s currently blindfolded and tied to a chair. Isn’t he, your Grace?”

 

Rod’s head was now reeling both in pain and shock, ‘H _ow?! How could they know about that? Do they work for the outsider? Are they here to finally finish me off?’_

“You see Mr Reiss; I’ll know when you’re lying to me because I already know the truth: I know about the true royal family, I know what you do in that crystal cave of yours, and I know what’s inside the walls.”

“Now, let’s try this again.” Rod was suddenly pulled off the floor as the chair was uprighted, “I want to know where you keep the Titan spinal fluid, and how do you create it?”

“W... what are you talking about? I’m not the king!”

An exaggerated sigh was the only warning Rod got before a fist slammed into his stomach, once, then twice and then a final punch to the face breaking his nose with a sickening crack.

The force of the impacts caused Rod to throw up, a putrid combination of bile and blood now covering his shirt, he gasped, trying to force oxygen into his winded body in between pained coughs. But before he could do or say anything else a new sensation cut through the haze of pain; he felt something cold, hard and sharp resting just beyond the knuckle of his right little finger.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Mr Reiss, now answer the question.”

 

Through a mouthful of blood, Rod spat out “You’re insane. You’re a monster.”

“Not yet, Mr Reiss. Now, last chance to give me an answer.”

Rod grit his teeth, he was not a brave man, not even close, but he couldn’t fail his family’s legacy, not again. He could endure some pain right…. Right?

“So be it.”

There was a second of stillness as the knife slammed down on his little finger, severing skin, muscle and bone as if it were paper. It was almost an out of body experience as Rod felt his little finger being cut off and blood began pouring out the gory stump. The stillness ended abruptly as the agonising pain forced his consciousness back into his body.

“AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!” his tortured screams shattered the silence of the chapel.

 

* * *

 

Sometime later

Armin and Mikasa walked out of the chapel, small bag in hand, filled with several injections of Titan Spinal Fluid. Armin’s theory that the Reiss’s must have been producing the fluid for a long time had been correct; they had found nearly a dozen injections stored within the crystal caves. They now had enough Fluid for all the shifters on the island and then enough for the next generation of shifters if they were still needed.

Armin felt detached and emotionless as he walked toward the clearing where they had left their horse, he wondered if this is what Hanji and Levi had felt like after they tortured that MP, listening to it had been incredibly difficult at the time, it made him feel sick to his stomach, yet now after he had actually tortured someone, he just felt empty.

Armin truthfully hadn’t expected to find Rod in the chapel, he thought the chapel would be empty, and they would have to search blindly through the caves. They were ‘fortunate’ to find him, the information they have acquired from him had saved them a great deal of time, and they had learnt how the royal family harvested the spinal fluid over the generations.

 

He looked over at Mikasa, seeing how she felt. To most people she looked to be as stoic as ever, no hint of what they had done showed on her face. But Armin had known her for years, and he could see the slight clench of her jaw and the tension in her steps. She was clearly uncomfortable with Armin’s choice, his decision on what to do with Reiss after they got what they wanted. She understood, of course, it was a necessary evil, but that didn’t mean she had to be happy with it.

“Come on, we’ve made good time, but we need to get back before anyone notices we’re gone.”

He nodded in agreement, his mind already planning out how they would deal with the traitors. Annie would be the ‘easiest’ to deal with, her self-imposed distance from Reiner and Bertholdt and the other 104th cadets would give them more opportunities to get her alone and take her out.

They had two years and 5 months before the shifters attack Trost, while that may sound like plenty of time Armin knew they would be working on a tight schedule, their plans would have to be perfect, covering every potential outcome and preventing any consequences, a single mistake, a single slipup, and the traitors would know their cover had been blown, and Paradise would be doomed.

 

So, Armin did what he did best.

He planned.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> Strangely enough this was on of the easiest chapters I've written so far, it just seems to flow when I was writing. That might say something about me that a torture scene was easy to write but heyho.
> 
> I decided to leave Rod's fate ambiguous about whether he is dead or alive.  
> I'm trying to keep options open as while this is a timetravel fic I'm not Isayama so I cant create a whole new story from scratch. This means that rod can either be brought back or left if the story requires it. 
> 
> I did have one question for you guys and girls, what do you think about another future character being "brought back"?  
> At the moment its very much a barebones plan but I have a good idea how to implement it but the story can go on with or without them so its up to you.


	5. First Goodbyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello All, sorry about the slight delay in this chapter.
> 
> Hopefully this *slightly* longer chapter will make up for it.

Ever since their successful mission to the Reiss Chapel Armin’s mind had been working overtime, he had envisioned countless plans of how to deal with Annie. He had considered trying to lure her into a trap, ambushing her during a long survival training exercise or trying to befriend her and waiting till she let her guard down. 

Each had their own advantages and disadvantages. At present Armin believed their best chance of success was with the survival training ‘accident’, cadets had died before during such exercises either from exposure, wild animals or by falling off mountains or into canyons.

The issue would be the body or lack thereof. In all of the training accidents, bodies had been discovered; blooded, gnawed at, frozen or mangled and broken there was always something to be found. That wouldn’t be the case for Annie, a Titan rarely left any recognisable remains and, perhaps ironically, a lack of remains could raise more suspicion than an actual body.

He had been sitting in the mess hall, trying to solve that dilemma when Mikasa sat beside him, her eyes flicking over towards Eren and Jean as they started another heated argument over some inane topic.

“We need to talk, I have a plan.” she murmured to him, making sure they weren’t overheard in the busy mess hall. Armin quirked an eyebrow, Mikasa wasn’t normally one to come up with plans, trusting in Armin to lead her right, but when she did, she showed she was just as capable of making plans as she is at following them.

With a nod he suggested they leave the mess hall and find somewhere quiet.

A few moments later they found themselves behind one of the outer storage huts, not the most private place but with most of the cadets currently stuffing their faces with breakfast they shouldn’t be disturbed.

“Alright Mikasa, what’s your plan?”

“Annie is going to sneak out of here tomorrow night to do some spying in the underground city. She’s searching for information about the King.”

“How do you know that?” Armin replied, surprise evident in his voice.

Mikasa suddenly looked strangely bashful, “I heard her leave the dorms last night, so I followed her. I found the three traitors talking about it in the woods, Reiner told her it was too dangerous, but she just told him she could handle herself.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!” Armin nearly shouted, “Mikasa are you crazy, do you know how dangerous that was? If they had found you, they would have killed you!”

“Calm down Armin, I was very careful.”

“That’s not the point Mikasa! This is dangerous, we can’t just rush into this.”

“Armin, this is an excellent opportunity. When are we going to get this kind of chance again? No one would find out.”

Armin contemplates this, Mikasa is right, this is an excellent opportunity but he’s not happy with the timescale, they only had two days to get everything ready. It would be doable, but it would be tight.   

“We’ll need protection,” Armin replies slowly “we can’t risk something going wrong”. They would have to keep Annie from transforming if they caught her, cutting off her limbs would achieve that.

Armin had prepared something that could knock Annie out, Hanji had created it after they retook Shiganshina in case Marley sent any more shifters. A potent, fast-acting sedative, made by mixing nearly a dozen commonly found herbs, that could disable a shifter within seconds (Armin, being one of her two test subjects, could vouch for its effectiveness).

Mikasa gave a hum of approval, happy that Armin was agreeing to her plan.

Armin bit his lower lip, brows furrowed in concentration, considering the possible outcomes _“Yes, this can work.”_.

“Alright. Let’s do it.” A note of determination filled his voice

And with that, Annie’s fate is decided.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s a cold, stormy night as Annie Leonhart trekked through the woods towards wall Sina. There’s no moon tonight, hidden completely by the dark grey storm clouds above.

Annie is not in a good mood. She doesn’t want to be on this God-forsaken island, surrounded by the very people she had been taught to hate since birth. She didn’t want to be wandering around in the dark, searching for some hidden monarch in the hope they know about the founding titan. She didn’t want any of this, all she wanted was to go home. To fulfil her promise and to see her father again.

She had spent three years on this island now and they were no closer to finding the founding titan than when they arrived. All they had done is broken wall Maria and killed thousands of these Island Devils… no, not devils, people. They had killed thousands of people.

She couldn’t suppress the shame and disgust that burnt within her, these people had no idea about the outside world, they honestly believed they were the last of humanity. They couldn’t understand why they had been attacked and they never would. Their orders had been clear if they couldn’t find the founding titan, they were to destroy all three walls and let the normal titans finish off the survivors.

As she stepped over tree roots, she thought about her co-conspirators; it was clear that this mission was taking a serious toll on Reiner mental state. He seemed to drift between the warrior, sent to this island to destroy it, and a soldier who wants to fight for it.

Bertholdt was little better, he seemed to spend all his energy keep Reiner from blowing their cover and trying to distance himself from what they had done. Annie had accepted what she had helped do, she had accepted her crimes, she didn’t pretend to be innocent like they did. She could never understand why Marley had given their strongest Titan to, who she considered to be, the weakest of the successful warrior candidates.

Without realising she had wandered into a clearing, she had been walking for a while now and knew from experience it would likely be another hour until she reached wall Sina. Deciding to stop for a minute, Annie fished out her water canteen from her bag and gulped it down.

Suddenly a shiver went up her spine, something was wrong. She quickly leapt up, eye darting back and forth along the tree line, still not sure what had disturbed her.

She pulled a small knife out of her pocket, ready to slice her palm at a moment’s notice, the feeling of wrongness was still there. She was being watched, she was sure of it, she looked deeper into the woods making out two unblinking yellow eyes staring straight at her.

Swallowing the lump in her throat she moved the knife to rest on her palm, as the bushes were pushed aside as whatever it was moved towards her. She was a split second away from cutting her palm when a flash of lightning lit up the night sky, in the sudden illumination of the clearing she could finally see what was watching her.

It was a deer.

Annie wanted to smack herself. She had nearly revealed herself all because she got spooked by some dumb animal. Letting out a shaky laugh, she shook her head placing the blade back in her pocket, lambasting herself for being so stupid.

Then unexpectedly, something small and hard impacted against her neck, her hand flew up grabbing at whatever it was and pulling it out. She looked down at it in disbelief, it was a dart and it was leaking some fluid from the tip.

A wave of nausea hit her, she tried to reach for her knife realising she was under attack, but her arms felt like lead. Her legs gave up underneath her and she collapsed, smacking her head hard against the ground.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_“Get up Annie, you won’t become a warrior if you don’t train hard. Now wake up, we have training.”_

Hearing her father’s voice Annie’s eyes shot open, her heart pounding. She had been propped up against a tree, a haze of steam had surrounded her, pouring from her four newly amputated limbs. She stared in disbelief at the stumps, the sense of dread was almost overwhelming. Someone, somehow, had discovered the truth about her.

“Hello, Annie.” Armin Arlert stood before her, his face completely devoid of emotion and he looked down upon her. A bolt of lightning lit up the night sky behind him, making him look more like a towering giant than the 5’3” cadet that he was. At that moment Annie had never feared a person more than she had Armin Arlert.

“I wanted to talk to you, face to face. I never got the chance before.”

_“Before?! What is he talking about? How the hell did he find out about me?”_

“I don’t blame you, Annie. I don’t blame you for what you helped do to Shiganshina and Wall Maria. I don’t hate you for what you did to Levi Squad or to Stohess. I still don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“I know what Marley told you, they told you we were devils, guilty of crimes committed centuries ago. They promised you and your family would be absolved of your ‘crimes’ and could become honourary Marleyans if you became one of their ‘warriors’.”

Annie’s head was reeling, she had no idea how Armin knew any of this, even if he had discovered her titan abilities, how could he know about Marley and the warrior program? It was impossible.

And what was he talking about with Stohess and Levi Squad?? She had, of course, heard about Captain Levi through stories and cadet gossip; ‘humanity’s strongest soldier’, a legendary figure in the survey corps, rumoured to have personally killed hundreds of titans. She had never met the man, yet Armin had accused her of doing something to his squad.

“I want you to know Annie, that this isn’t personal. In another world, maybe things could have been different, maybe you could have fought alongside us, but this world is cruel, and we must be too if we are going to survive. Goodbye Annie.” The blond boy finished quietly before he turned and walked away from her gradually healing body.

Coming back to her senses Annie called out after him, trying to keep him talking, buying her time until she had healed and could transform. But Armin ignored her, giving no reaction that he had even heard her speak.

 

Annie looked down at her limbs, they were healing rapidly, only another minute or two and she could transform. She would have to act fast; she would have to kill Armin, then make her way back to Reiner and Bertholdt and tell them they were compromised.

Her desperate planning was interrupted by movement to her left. Her heart dropped as Mikasa Ackerman stepped into view. She had rarely spoken to the half Asian girl, the two of them had never gotten along and were even considered rivals by other cadets due to their hand to hand combat prowess. Mikasa silently stared at her, just like Armin her face was completely emotionless.

She said nothing as she pulled out a large syringe filled with a familiar blueish fluid and pressed the needle into her arm, thumb on the plunger. Annie’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head, they weren’t just going to kill her, they were going to take her power.

“Wait!” she cried out, composure starting to break, “Please don’t, I don’t know what you’ve been told but if you use that you’ll die. The curse…”

“I know.” Mikasa interrupted coldly, as she pushed down the plunger.

 

A yellow lightning bolt smashed into the clearing, as Mikasa body was broken apart and forcefully transformed. Where the half Asian girl had been once been standing, now a 12m titan stood in her place; its arms were short and skinny and its torso was elongated and narrow, it looked like a nightmarish stick figure. Its face was large and stretched, its mouth open in a goofy grin with saliva dribbling down its pointed chin.

The titan reached down to where the helpless Annie sat, large hands gripping the terrified girl tightly, cracking ribs as it lifted her towards its open maw. Through the pain and fear Annie screamed “NO, NOOO!!” as Annie was placed in the titan’s mouth, “PLEASE FATHER, SAVE MEEEEE!” were Annie Leonhart last words before the titan’s teeth came crashing down onto her.

 

Armin watched, silently, as Mikasa tore Annie apart, feasting on the body. He had wanted to look away, to block out Annie’s screams for mercy, but he didn’t. He had signed Annie’s death warrant, so he forced himself to watch the consequences of his actions. He owed her that much at least.

As the titan consumed the last remnants of the body it turned and look towards Armin, naturally seeking the next human to feast upon. Armin instinctively took a step back, the primal fight or flight response kicking in as he prepared to flee. Fortunately, before the titan could move towards him it collapsed, slamming into the ground with a deafening crash.

He ran towards the steaming body, clambering up to reach the nape seeing Mikasa’s human body still half-submerged in the titan’s flesh. He plunged his arms into the steaming meat, wrapping them around his friend and pulled her out of the fleshly prison.

 

Mikasa was only semi-conscious when she was pulled out, the shifter marks under her eyes were long and red, reaching down to her checks. They fell to the ground as the titan body dissolved beneath them. She vaguely felt his arms around her and leaned further into his comforting embrace as her head lolled around, eventually she focused on his face, seeing his look of relief and the tears falling from his eyes.

“Armin” she whispered, “please… please don’t leave me.”

Armin knew she wasn’t just talking about here and now, “I’ll never abandon you.” He choked out. “We’ll do this together, I promise.”

“Thank you, Armin.” She slurred out, a tear slipping down her own face before she finally passed out.

 

**(Artwork made by the wonderful Taku-mune. Please check out their Tumblr and support all the amazing work they do!)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo Hoo Mikasa Titan!
> 
> Just a quick note that the stick figure titan is her pure form, obviously her female titan form will be different (see Eren and Armin's pure titan forms compared to their shifter ones)
> 
> I've read a fair few AoT fanfics but I don't think I've even seen one where Mikasa becomes a titan. If one you have I would love to read it!
> 
> Anyway hope you enjoyed it. Just a quick note if I dont upload a chapter next by next sunday, there will be a two week delay until I upload again (I'm going away for a week.) just wanted to warn you lot in advance.


	6. Misassumptions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT PLEASE READ:
> 
> If you have been reading this story as the chapters come out I would highly recommend you re-read the last chapter before starting this one.  
> I changed Mikasa and Armin's conversation in the first bit to make this chapter work.  
> So if you don't re-read this wont make sense.

It’s well after midnight when Armin finally sees the camp’s outer fence. Exhaustion had set in a while back, his legs shaking like blades of grass in the wind. He had to carry the unconscious Mikasa the whole way back from that clearing.

Just like Eren and himself after their initial transformations, she had passed out, and nothing seemed to wake her. Eren had told him that he had been unconscious for several hours after eating Bertholdt and Eren was out of it for nearly a day after the battle of Trost.

Armin knew there would be chaos when Annie was reported missing, and if anyone noticed and reported their absence during the night they would be in serious trouble. They had to get back as soon as possible to avoid any suspicion.

 

Unfortunately, being the only conscious member of the pair, it fell to him to get them back.

Armin didn’t want to call Mikasa ‘heavy’ (he knew that calling any girl that was a surefire way to meet a very messy, very painful end and he did actually value his life, thank you very much), but in his 13-year-old body Armin simply didn’t have the strength to easily carry someone on his back for several hours.

With a huff of relief, he forced his legs to move, covering the distance between the edge of the woods and the fence with painful slowness. _“Come on,”_ he thought to himself _“Only a few more minutes. We’re nearly there.”_

Several tiring minutes later he finally reaches the barracks, only to realise he had another problem. Mikasa was still unconscious, her slow breathing and body heat were her only signs of life for the last few hours. He couldn’t just leave her outside and he couldn’t bring her to the boy’s dorm in case Shadis saw her in the morning, leaving only one option left to him.

Armin would have to sneak into the girl’s dorm…

With an unconscious person on his back…

Without being seen or heard…

And get Mikasa in her bed.

He let out a long-suffering sigh, _“The boys would never let me live this down if they found out.”_ He thought; half resigned and half-amused, _“Or they would demand I tell them everything.”_

Shaking his head, he started to move towards the girl’s dorm.

 

* * *

 

 

There are many words that can be used to describe Eren Yeager; Angry, determined, headstrong or, as Jean would say, suicidal. But one people didn’t use to describe Eren would be observant, in fact, the boy sometimes had a supernatural ability to miss the obvious.

It had been a long day of training as Eren wearily made his way, food tray in hand, to a table. Slumping down on his seat, he began to dig into his bland, tasteless dinner. The two years he had lived as an orphaned refugee had taught Eren to never waste food and to treat every meal as if it were the only thing he might get that day.

True to form, Eren had managed to consume half his dinner before noticing that Mikasa and Armin hadn’t joined him. Confused, he looked around the canteen wondering if they had sat elsewhere or had been caught behind Sasha in the queue (it was well known amongst the 104th cadets that getting stuck behind Potato girl at dinner was a rookie mistake. She would try every trick in the book, from begging to bartering, trying to scrounge more food from the kitchen staff). 

As if his confusion had summoned them, his missing friends suddenly walked in the mess hall quietly chatting to one another. Catching Armin’s eye, the blond smiled and gave Eren a small wave before they joined the dinner queue. Satisfied with his friends’ whereabouts he went back to eating, bringing a spoonful of broth to his mouth.

“Do you think they’re dating?” Eren looked over to the neighbouring table where Mina, Thomas and Hannah where sitting.

“Those two? Nah. What makes you think they are?”

“Well they always seem to be together and Sasha swears she saw the two of them sneak behind one of the storage huts.” Mina said.

Eren quickly lost interest, annoyance building within him. They were here to be soldiers and learn how to kill titans, not to gossip about crushes and who fancied who. It irritated him enough when he heard it in the boy dorms, the same stupid conversation over and over again; _“Who’s do you think is the hottest?”, “Who’s got the best arse?”_ or another round of _‘Kiss, Marry, Avoid’._

“Pfft _,_ I doubt it, the only thing Sasha ever pays attention to is food.” Thomas was interrupted as Mina smacked him over the head. Rubbing the back of his head before continuing “Ow Mina, that hurt. Anyway, isn’t she kinda obsessed with Yeager?” Despite his previous thoughts on the matter, Eren couldn’t stop himself from listening in.

“Not anymore, I think she realised it was unrequited. Poor girl.” Replied Hannah, the resident expert on romance thanks to her ongoing relationship with Franz.

Before Eren could demand they tell him who they were talking about Mikasa and Armin sat down next to him. Armin apologised for being late, telling him that Shadis had wanted to talk to them.

Eren felt a brief flicker of jealousy pass through him; both Mikasa and Armin seemed to be excelling with their training, quickly distinguishing themselves from the other cadets with both their 3DM and weapon skills. Eren had been improving, but nowhere near as quickly as they had. It made him feel inadequate knowing he was the least skilled of the trio; he needed to be better and strong if he was going to protect them and kill all the titans.

The moment soon passed, and he returned to what he had overheard Thomas say. _“Who would be obsessed over me? Did one of the girls liked me?”_ the questions ran through his mind. He couldn’t think of who they could’ve been talking about, _“I talk to Armin about it, he’ll know.”_.

He turned to speak to them when he was abruptly interrupted.

“Good job fighting Annie today, Yeager. Maybe one day you might actually win!” Jean Kirstein jeered from across the hall.

“Why don’t you come over here and say that, Horseface!”

And like that Eren had completely forgotten his plan to speak to Armin.

 

* * *

 

 

Eren knew he had probably had too much to drink, but Horseface had challenged him and Eren would rather headbutt a titan than let a challenge from Jean go unanswered. Even something as small as a drinking game he wouldn’t concede to him.

He swayed in the busy Trost pub, he had beaten Jean (who had passed out onto Marco) and was celebrating his victory with another drink. His whole body lurched forward as an arm wrapped around his shoulders, “That was some fine drinking there Eren, put Jeanie boy back in his place!” a drunk, red-cheeked Reiner chuckled beside him, drink in hand. “Say, where’s Armin and Mikasa?”

Eren jovial mood disappeared, “They didn’t come, they said they already had plans.” He sneered at the last word, he was still annoyed at his friends, one of the few times they get the chance to leave bootcamp and they refused to go.

But this only made Reiner laugh some more, “Haha, yeah I bet those two had _‘plans’_.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

Grinning, Reiner replied, “Come on Eren, you don’t have to cover for them with me. I can see what’s going on.”

“Reiner, what the hell are you on about? Covering for what?” Eren stared at the ‘blond behemoth’ as Connie had once nicked named him, thoroughly confused.

Reiner’s grin slowly died and disappeared of his face “Wait, you don’t know? Oh…”

Eren’s patience finally ran out, “Stop being an idiot Reiner, what don’t I know?!”

Throwing his hands up in surrender, Reiner calmly says “Woah man, calm down. I’m just asking if Armin and Mikasa are… together ya know, like if they’re dating?”

Eren’s mouth dropped, staring at Reiner in shock. Of all the things Reiner could have said that was perhaps the most unexpected, Eren probably would have been less shocked if Reiner had told him he was half titan or something.

“I... What? Why would you think that? They’re clearly not dating, or they would…” Eren’s words died in his throat. What would dating people do? He thought about Hannah and Franz, the only confirmed couple in the 104th, and how they acted.

They were constantly together; during training, meals and free time. If you saw one, the other wasn’t far behind. Just like Armin and Mikasa.

They worked well together, trusting each other and coming to the aid of the other when needed. Just like Armin and Mikasa.

And they often sneaked off, leaving the other cadets behind without telling anyone. Just like Armin and Mikasa.

The more he thought about it, the more it explained their recent strange behaviour. Was it possible? Had they started dating without even telling him? Eren refused to believe that, surely, they would tell him if they were.

But he couldn’t stop that little voice in his heading telling him that it made sense; it explained why they seemed so much closer than they had been a few months ago and why they were often late for meals.

No, they were just close friends and Reiner was being stupid.

In a rare showing of self-control, Eren decided that he wouldn’t immediately confront his friends when he returned from Trost over Reiner’s words. But he certainly would be watching them closely from now on, he would discover the truth.

 

* * *

 

 

True to his word, Eren watched his friends closely. They didn’t seem to show any obvious signs of affection like Hannah and Franz did.

There were no longing stares or excessive physical contact. But there was something, Eren couldn’t quite put his finger on it but it was there, some deeper connection that he didn’t understand. He watched them during training, whenever they were paired together, they seemed to know exactly what the other was planning. Even when Shadis was in an exceptionally bad mood (not that he was ever in a good mood), he could find no reason to criticise their performance.

This only fuelled Eren suspicions, they were clearly closer than he had expected and in his mind that pointing towards one thing… that maybe Reiner was right.

 

Eren had just finished his argument with Jean when he noticed that Armin and Mikasa have left the mess hall. He narrowed his eyes in irritation, they must have waited until he was distracted by Horseface to leave. He had previously decided to follow them next time they disappeared and maybe find out once and for all what was going on between his two friends.

Sasha had already helped herself to the remains of his meal while he was arguing. Seeing no reason to stick around Eren also stalked out of the mess hall.

 

As quickly and quietly as possible Eren sneaked from outbuilding to outbuilding trying to find his missing friends. He wasn’t trying to spy on them, he told himself but was merely making sure they were alright without them noticing his presence, he was doing what any good friend should.

Yeah, he totally wasn’t spying…

 

He was about to give up when he suddenly heard a familiar voice behind one of the storage huts.

“YOU DID WHAT!” Armin’s near shout finally revealed their location to Eren.

Eren, unfortunately, missed what Armin followed up with as he crouched down on the other side of the hut, listening in.

“Calm down Armin, I was very careful.” He heard his adopted sister whisper, curious about what had caused Armin to shout.

“That’s not the point Mikasa! This is dangerous, we can’t just rush into this.” His blood went cold. What was going on? Were his friends in danger? Was someone threatening them? He was about to march round and demand answers when Mikasa replied.

“Armin, this is an excellent opportunity. When are we going to get this kind of chance again? No one would find out.”

Confusion and concern warred within him. He knew Mikasa would never put Armin or him in danger, she used to mother them constantly when training started, so the idea that she would be seemingly encouraging something dangerous to Armin was a foreign one to him.

Armin was quiet for a few moments. Eren didn’t need to see his friend to know he was thinking about whatever Mikasa had asked him. Eventually, Armin does reply.

“We’ll need protection. We can’t risk something going wrong.”

Oh

**Oh**

An uncontrollable blush creeps up his face, as he realised what he’s uncovered. As the son of a doctor and having recent sat through the standard military sex education lesson, (which consisted of a camp nurse explaining the bare-basics of reproduction, the different diseases you can catch and how to prevent pregnancy and said diseases, and was finished off by Shadis threatening to personally neuter anyone who even thinks about doing it) he could gather what sort of ‘protection’ they were talking about.

He had no idea what the hell to do, his brain not quite able to bridge the gap between what he’s just overheard and everything he thinks he knows about Armin and Mikasa. But when Mikasa replied with a hum of approval his body took control from his overworked brain, and he fled, hoping they didn’t hear his rapid retreat.

 

* * *

 

 

After his discovery, Eren does everything in his power to avoid the pair without raising suspicions. An almost overwhelming sense of awkwardness fills him whenever he’s with the two, he knows he should say something but has no idea what. _“Oh, hey Armin/Mikasa, I was casually spying on you and overheard you planning to have sex with my adoptive sister/best friend. Wanna talk about that?”_ Yeah right.

Despite trying to avoid them he can’t help but keep an eye on them. He had no idea what he would do if he saw them sneak off; would he just let it happen or try and stop them. He’s not opposed to them being together, he wants them to be happy, but the idea of them doing _that_ bothers him.

To his immense relief, the two of them spend the rest of that day and all of the next, training like normal. They give no indication they are planning to sneak off, as they talk and exercise with the other cadets. Perhaps this ‘opportunity’ Mikasa spoke about isn’t as soon as he feared. Good, that might give him time to work out what he’s going to say to them.

 

Eren heads to bed that night tired, but relieved. During dinner, he had come up with the barebones of what he wants to tell them. He would tell them that he supports their relationship and that he was happy for them, but if either of them hurts the other he would make the perpetrator wish the titans got them. Then he would follow it up with a group hug and then immediately begin teasing them as any good friend/brother should. He closes his eyes, content, and slowly drifts off to sleep.

 

He’s not sure what exactly rouses him in the night, it’s pitch black and mostly silent, yet something still disturbed his sleep. Drowsily, he looks around the dorm. He can see Bertholdt going through the motions of his bizarre sleep dance, arms and legs contorted in ways that didn’t look natural or remotely comfortable.

Reiner and Connie are both snoring away, while Horseface mumbles nonsense in his sleep. Just a normal night in the dorms, so what the hell woke him up? He looks over to Armin’s bed and Eren is suddenly wide awake.

It’s empty.

His mouth goes dry, _“Maybe he’s gone to the toilet? Yeah, that makes sense. He’ll be back soon.”_ So Eren waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Eren has been awake for hours when Armin finally returns. Even though the darkness Eren can see Armin looks completely exhausted, he walks as if he just ran hundreds of laps, dragging his feet along the wooden floor and ungracefully falls onto his bed with a ‘ _thump_ ’. Armin is asleep within seconds of his head touching the pillow, his soft snoring joining Reiner’s and Connie’s.

Eren spends the rest of the night staring at the wall, wishing the bed would just swallow him whole.

When his sister joins them at breakfast in the morning looking just as tired as Armin did, he wished that the ground would just swallow him whole and end his suffering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is definitely the longest chapter I've done so far. I had to re-write it a few times and I'm still not 100% with it. But as I am going away soon I shouldn't leave you guys hanging.
> 
> Hopefully I made Eren come across correctly. He's not jealous or angry about his friends 'relationship' but is just going through the awkwardness of (in his mind) having two close friends starting to date one another.  
> I'm sure some of us may have experienced this is one way or another so hopefully I did justice to that feeling.


	7. Late Arrivals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello All, I'm back from my holiday.
> 
> This chapter was surprisingly difficult to write, not sure why but it seemed that 80% of what I wrote I went back and changed it at least twice.
> 
> Hopefully next chapter will be easier as I get back into the flow.

One of the most obvious side effects of being cold and pushing others away is that eventually, people stop noticing or caring when you don’t show up to things. Had Annie Leonhart been alive, perhaps she could have appreciated the irony of her actions, by pushing people away she made her own ‘disappearance’ so much easier.

Very few people noticed she wasn’t at breakfast that morning, fewer cared.

Only a few more noticed she wasn’t present for hand to hand training that morning, but most assumed she was just skiving off.

It was only after lunch when Annie didn’t attend 3DM training that the other cadets started to wonder where she was, but still, most were not bothered. Eventually, however, Shadis grew frustrated at her absenteeism and demanded to know her whereabouts.

When no one answered he believed that someone must be covering for her and decided that group punishment would loosen some tongues. So, the 104th found themselves running laps until _‘Someone tells me where the hell Leonhart is!’._

As the laps rolled pass with no forthcoming answers, Shadis demanded to know when the cadets last saw her. When the group consensus is dinner last night, the angry instructor turns on the female cadets, asking when Annie left the barracks that morning.

When an angry Ymir spits out “the bitch’s bed was empty this morning, sir.” it finally clicks for Shadis that this may not be some truanting cadet and orders the 104th to stop running and to stand at attention while he checks on the barracks.

5 minutes later he returns and divides the cadets into groups of 3 telling them to search the camp from top to bottom.

45 minutes later, there is no sign of Annie Leonhart anywhere within the camp. Rumours and theories are spreading throughout the trainees, everything from kidnapping to desertion is suggested.

60 minutes later, Keith orders the cadets to begin searching the surrounding forest, threatening to make Annie, and anyone who may be covering for her, clean the latrines with their tongues when she’s found.

270 minutes later, Annie Leonhart disappearance is reported to the MPs.

With the usual arrogance of the MPs, when they finally arrived, they immediately order the cadets to stop searching, claiming they were not trained for this sort of thing and would only get in the way. Then they decided to spend several hours researching the entire camp and immediate surrounding forest believing the cadets may have somehow missed their comrade.

All in all, in the 6 hours since the search first started all they had to go on was an empty bed and Annie’s unworn uniform.

 

The sun was starting to set when the cadets were once again ordered to gather on the training field and stand at attention. MPs walked through the ranks demanding to know when each cadet last saw Annie and their whereabouts since that sighting.

It was an overweight, balding MP that stopped in front of the Shiganshina Trio, “You,” he spoke at Mikasa, “when was the last time you saw cadet Leonhart?”

With a salute, Mikasa simply replied “She was in her bed when I reached the barracks last night, sir.”

“Did you see her leave the barracks at any point last night?” the MP droned back, sounding completely uninterested of the whole situation.

“No Sir, she was gone when I woke up this morning.”

The MP looked around as if searching for something interesting to beat his boredom, “Did you leave the barracks at any point last night?”

It was fortunate that the MP wasn’t paying attention to the trio or else he might have noticed Eren stiffen slightly at that question before Mikasa replied “No sir.”

 

Over the next hour and a half, every cadet is questioned before finally being dismissed for a now very late dinner.

In the end in standard MP laziness they only stick around for two more days, and with no evidence or leads to follow they officially registered Annie as away without leave and a deserter.

 

* * *

 

 Three Months Later

 

The next three months are increasingly stressful for Armin and Mikasa. They have to keep an eye on the two remaining traitors, keep Mikasa’s newly acquired abilities hidden and plan their next move. They had agreed to lay low after dealing with Annie as if they assassinated another of the traitors too soon the survivor would likely panic and flee or rush to complete their mission.

Unfortunately for them, they had almost become victims of their own success. Practically all the other cadets believed Annie had deserted and most had already moved on, but not Reiner and Bertholdt. To their knowledge, Annie was killed in the undercity during her intel-gathering mission, and while this removed any possible suspicion from the Armin and Mikasa, it had the unwanted side effect of making the two traitors extra cautious.

Bert seemed to become even more nervous, constantly looking like he wasn’t even comfortable in his own skin. He sweated more than ever and seemed to curl into himself both mentally and physically whenever he was separated from Reiner.

And Reiner? Well, he was confusing. Sometimes he was quiet and withdrawn, sticking close to Bert as if his life depended on it (which it kind of did, not that he knew that) and other times he was ‘normal’, the 104th protective big brother, he joked with Connie, tried to flirt with Krista and offered help to anyone he thought might need it.

Armin had remembered that after retrieving Eren from their failed kidnapping, Eren had been debriefed and told everyone that Reiner seemed to be losing his mind, as he was acting like two different people. A split personality as one of Armin’s books had called it.

It was strange, it seems so obvious now that something was wrong with Reiner compared to last time. Armin wasn’t sure if it was because he knew what to look for or the Annie situation had further weakened his mental state.

 

But it wasn’t just those two who had changed... 

 

Occasionally, Armin would find Mikasa simply staring into the middle distance, obvious to her surroundings. When he called her name, she would slowly look at him with an unreadable expression before suddenly realising where she was. The first few times this happened she’d waved off Armin’s questions claiming tiredness, but eventually, she told him the truth.

“I keep seeing… things. Flashes of people I’ve never met and places I’ve never been to. It’s like a dream but different.” She grips at the scarf around her neck, a clear indication of her discomfort and confusion. “There’s a man… he’s talking to me, but I can never hear what he’s trying to say.”

And Annie’s memories aren’t the only thing Mikasa inherited; during hand to hand training, Armin noticed Mikasa starting to use some of Annie’s moves. She started sweeping the legs of her opponent from underneath them rather than simply using her sheer strength to overpower them.  

But what concerned Armin the most is that she wasn’t consciously choosing to do so; it made him wonder just how much influence the previous shifter could exert on the current holder.

If holding one titan had been enough to influence both Mikasa and himself, it would explain why Eren had changed so much. Before they ‘returned’ he held three titans; the ‘attack’ titan, the founding titan and the Warhammer titan.

Three streams of memories in one mind, all influencing his beliefs and actions.

He wondered how much of Eren, the man who had once been his brother in all but blood, was truly left in the end.

 

* * *

 

 

Mikasa knew she was never the most approachable person, she hadn’t been the first time in training and certainly not this time around. After everything she had been through, after everyone she had lost both before and after wall Maria fell, in her mind, only Eren and Armin were important, that they were only people she could trust and that anyone else would eventually be taken from her, like her parents and the Yeagers.

She believed she had no more room left in her heart to care for any others.

 

Slowly though, over the years, through battle after battle, that had changed. After training, Trost, joining the scouts, overthrowing the government, retaking wall Maria and Marley she realised that her circle of trust had expanded.

Jean, Sasha, Connie, Historia, Hanji and even that midget of a captain, Levi had all become important to her. People she would fight for, kill for, to protect.

But now they were all so different, practically strangers wearing her friend’s faces;

Connie was a carefree comedian, constantly joking and messing around. This wasn’t the man who had lost his entire family, village and best friend in the crucible of war. This wasn’t the man who would fight to his last breath to defend those he had left.

Jean was more egotistical, he only cared about joining the MPs, praising them and denigrating the scouts in ways that would have disgusted the proud scout she knew.

Sasha… Sasha was alive again but still spoke with that fake city accent, trying to hide her rural origins. When Historia left the scouts, Sasha had been the only other girl in the special operations squad, and as such, she had occasionally confided in Sasha things she hadn’t even told Eren or Armin.

But this wasn’t her Sasha, this wasn’t the veteran scout she had fought alongside time and time again. This Sasha, like Jean, wanted to join the MPs, only so she could live a safe, food-filled life.

 

And finally, Historia.

“Come on Mikasa, we are making good time. We need to get to camp before sunset.” The girl in question had stopped a few metres ahead and called to her.

Historia, or Krista Lenz as she still called herself, the illegitimate daughter to a secret king, who wanted nothing to do with her until it suited him, and a mother who hated her very existence. She had changed the most.

This ‘Krista’ persona she had was almost sickly sweet; always kind and considerate, selfless and caring, beautiful and skilled yet humble and polite. She was ‘an angel come to Earth’ as Mikasa had once overheard her being called. A made-up personality for a made-up person.

But deep down, Mikasa wondered if continuing to live that lie would be better for her than the fate that awaited her.

Many people might believe that becoming a Queen would be wonderful; all that wealth and power at their fingertips, but that was not the position Historia inherited. She was a figurehead, a powerless public face only there to provide stability and legitimacy to the military government.

Then she had practically been forced into becoming a broodmare on the orders of Zeke Yeager and the military to maintain the royal bloodline, with the ultimate end of her inheriting the beast titan to activate the loophole in the founding titan’s power.

A puppet, broodmare and weapon. No one deserved that fate.

 

Mikasa sped up, falling into lockstep with the blond, “Sorry, I was distracted. It won’t happen again.”

“Oh, no problem. So… why do you think Shadis paired us up? Not that I don’t want to be your partner, of course, it’s just that normally you team up with Armin or Eren and I’m with Ymir.”

“He wants to see how we perform when working with people we don’t often work with or don’t get along with.”

Shadis had paired up all the cadets that morning, before sending them on a 25-mile hike through the forest, telling them if both cadets didn’t make the finish by sundown then both of them would have to redo the exercise. Most pairings were like theirs, two cadets that rarely trained together, as a way to form new bonds. But some had been between cadets that just didn’t get along such as; Ymir and Reiner and Eren and Jean. Maybe Shadis believed it would bring them closer, or maybe he just found it funny.

“Ah, that makes sense. I guess you can’t only fight beside people you know.” Krista says as they hike through the woods.

Mikasa gives a hum of agreement but doesn’t reply otherwise.

They continue to walk in silence for a while, with Krista trying to tempt Mikasa into a few more conversations, all of which are short and slightly awkward. It’s during one of these attempts when Krista stops paying attention to her surroundings and trips over an exposed root.

Like a bullet from a rifle, Mikasa’s hand shoots out grabbing Krista’s forearm to prevent her fall. But the second contact is made they both go completely rigid, every muscle in Mikasa’s body locks solid as what feels like electricity crawls up her arm, to her head.

 

The forest disappears, leaving only a small wooden house and a man on his knees in front of her, his head is bowed, and his arms were on her shoulders. _“Annie… I’m so sorry. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but please, please just stand your ground, even if the whole world stands against you, even if every other creature alive comes to hate you, your father will always be on your side... So please. Promise me...that you'll come back!”_

More memories follow; a yellow armband, then a red one. A training yard, and a bug being crushed beneath her feet.

 

Mikasa yanks her arm back, unwittingly allowing Krista to fall. It was him… the man she kept seeing, it was Annie’s father. She had heard him.

“M…Mikasa?”

She looked down at Krista, she had rolled over and pushed herself up. She had a cut on her forehead from hitting the ground and was looking around in utter bewilderment.

“His… Krista, you’re bleeding, are you okay?”

“What? Wait, Krista? What’s going on? Where are we?” her bewildered expression changed to one of apprehension, and Mikasa watched as her hand drifted down to her midsection. The gesture was a protective one, a natural maternal instinct to defend an unborn child.

Such a movement would be normal for a pregnant woman to do in a stressful situation but seeing a 14 year-old cadet, in muddy combat overalls, sitting in the middle of a forest doing it was anything but normal.

Unless of course, said 14-year-old, wasn’t, mentally, 14 anymore…

 _‘No,’_ Mikasa thought in disbelief, _‘it can’t be.’_

She didn’t realise how dry her mouth had become until she tried to speak.

“H…Historia?” she croaked out.

Their eyes met and time seemed to stop. The older, empty eyes the blond girl now had was enough to confirm Mikasa suspicions.

Somehow, just like herself and Armin, Historia had returned to the past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of Robot Chicken's M.Night Shyamalan "what a twist!"
> 
> Right, bit of an explanation though. We know that skin contact with someone of royal blood unlocks some memories of previous shifters, we saw this in the crystal caves with Eren and his dad.  
> This is why Mikasa saw some more of Annie's memories, when she touched Historia (I mentioned they hadn't trained together before to justify why it took several months after Mikasa becoming a shifter for this to happen).
> 
> My reasoning is, if royals can unlock memories in the shifters via P A T H S why can't they 'download' memories of themselves via touching a time travelling shifter. Don't know if you lot buy that excuse by that what I'm going with, but ultimately no one else is going to 'return' in this story so the how and why isn't too important. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.


	8. Change of fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello All, this chapter was a bit of a slog as well. 
> 
> You know when you have lots of ideas, but you just cant get it onto paper? That was this chapter.

For the first time in Mikasa’s life, she nearly failed a training exercise. She and Kris… Historia crossed the finish line with barely a minute to spare before sunset, Shadis gives her a strange look, as if he was both confused and almost personally insulted that she had nearly failed such a simple exercise.

His eyes flicked over to the bandages wrapped around Historia’s forehead. “Lenz, what happened?” he growled out

“Nothing sir, I just tripped over a tree root.”

“Well with such outstanding observation skills, you might be the first soldier in history to not see the titan about to eat you. Congratulations Lenz, you truly are the generation to save us all.” He ‘joked’ dryly.

“Well, you both passed… just. Fortunately for you the teams that arrived before you have already set up the tents. Go find one, Dismissed.” 

She gave the bare minimum response of a salute and a “Sir” before she marched off. She instructed Historia to find a tent away from the others so they could speak privately, while she went looking for Armin. He needed to know what had happened.

 

She found him sitting by a small campfire with his marching partner Mina, along with Sasha, Connie and Marco. They were all chatting idly, as Sasha skinned, gutted and cooked a recently hunted rabbit for dinner.

Mikasa ignored all of this as she approached Armin, as much as she tried to start trusting the others again, Armin was the only person she felt fully comfortable around. He hadn’t changed as all the others had, he was still the same Armin she remembered.

She still remembered when she first met him; she had only been living with the Yeager’s for a few days when Eren told her about his blond friend.

 

“You have to meet him, Mikasa, he’s super smart, smarter than most adults! He’s really friendly and has all these amazing books, that have drawings of the outside world. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

They had found him hunched over in an alley, his hair and clothes ruffled up. A book had been thrown some distance away which had several pages ripped out and discarded around the alley.

A pained moan slipped between his gritted teeth as he clutched his bruised ribs.

“ARMIN!” Eren had run toward him, dropping to his knees in front of the small blond. “Was it those arseholes again?! I’m going to find them and beat the crap out of them!” his body shook in barely contained fury.

“N…no” the blond croaks out “They’re not worth it Eren”

“Not worth it? They are bullies, Armin, scum. You shouldn’t let them walk all over you Armin. You need to fight back Armin. You can’t win if you don’t fight back!”

A small pained smile crept onto the blonds face, “I am winning Eren… I’m winning because I’m not running away.” Eren had only sighed and shook his head, and let the matter drop.

Mikasa didn’t understand at first, how could he not fight back? How was allowing yourself to be beaten up ‘winning’? When Mikasa had first met Armin in that dirty back alley she thought he was weak, cowardly and naïve.

She had never been so wrong.

Despite the countless times the bullies targeted Armin; all the times they would beat him, insult him or kicked him to the floor, he would never beg or plead for them to stop, he would never try to bribe them with money or food.

And he never once ran away from them.

 

It was several weeks after later when she first interacted with Armin without Eren being present. Carla had grounded him that morning for getting into another fight, and she had sent Mikasa out to get some ingredients from the market. As she made her way back from the stalls she had found Armin, cornered by three bullies in a nearby alley. Both for Eren’s sake and her own dislike of the bullies she fought them off before helping the blond boy up.

“Thank you, Mikasa. They seemed to have been offended by my ‘heretical’ opinions again.” He gave a forced laugh trying to make light of the situation.

“Why don’t you stand up for yourself Armin? How is this winning?” she cut off his forced laughter with the question as she gestured towards his torn clothes and bruised face.

He looked at her with an unreadable expression for a few moments. She felt as if she was being weighed and judged.

“Not everyone can be strong like you and Eren, Mikasa. I doubt I will ever be that strong. But that doesn’t mean I’m weak, I’m not going run away or change who I am just to appease some small-minded thugs.”

“That’s why I am winning because I won’t live in fear of them.”

Whenever she looked back on it, she believed that was the moment when her opinion of Armin began to change. He might not be strong in a conventional manner but he wasn’t weak and he certainly wasn’t a coward.

After that day their friendship grew, he showed her his grandfathers banned books, with drawings of the outside world; Lands of ice, fields of sand and the vast salt-filled oceans. He spoke about how humanity couldn’t stay behind these walls forever, that one day they would have to face the titans and reclaim what lay beyond. He told her of his and Eren’s dream to one day escape the walls, to visit the ocean and to explore the world. He asked if she wanted to come with them when they finally left.

Before long Armin had become part of her ‘family’, that small group of people, who as long as they lived, Mikasa would keep fighting no matter the odds. He became the anchor in her life, someone she could always rely on, someone who was always there to pick her up again when Eren said or did something that upset her. Normally it would be a silent squeeze of her shoulder, a sign of solidarity and understanding, and once, just once, he had punched Eren across the face for her.

That memory brought back something else that had been playing in the depths of her mind ever since they ‘returned’.

If what Eren told them was true, that she only cared for Eren because she ‘imprinted’ on him during _that_ day, that meant that Armin was her first true friend. The first person she chose to trust and care for, not because of her blood, or her ‘powers’ but because she wanted to.

She pushed those thoughts away, now was not the time for her to contemplate her relationship with the blond genius, she had a far more pressing issue to deal with.

“Oh, hey Mikasa, you made it. I was beginning to worry…” the boy in question must have heard her approach and turned around.

“We need to talk. Privately.” She didn’t wait for him to answer as she grabbed his hand and practically dragged him away from the campfire. She pretended not to hear Sasha’s giggles and Connie’s suggestive remark and whistle as they left.

 

Armin was puzzled at Mikasa’s unusual behaviour, she was never one to make any kind of scene in front of the other cadets. So, it was surprising when one minute he had been calmly sitting by a campfire and the next she had dragged him off with no explanation and then practically bundled him into one of the outermost tents.

He was about to ask just what the hell was going on when he noticed they weren’t the only occupants in the tent.

“Krista?” he asked still confused about what was happening.

The shorter blond sat upright on top of a sleeping bag, her hands were grasped together and were resting on her stomach, “Hello Armin.” She spoke coolly and elegantly, so different from the happy and friendly tone she always had, and yet it was strangely familiar to Armin.

“What? I don’t...”

“Armin.” Mikasa interrupted softly, “She’s just like us.”

 _‘She’s just like us? Well yeah she’s a fellow cadet but what do you mean…’_ his mind started to race, could it be possible? They had returned, so it must be possible, someone else coming back wasn’t unthinkable.

He looked at Mikasa, with the unspoken question clear in his eyes. She gave the smallest nod in response.

His head slowly turned to look at the illegitimate royal.

“It’s nice to see you again, Armin. It has been a while.”

“Historia” he breathed out her name as if fearing that merely saying the word would cause her to disappear. “How is this possible? When did this happen?”

“I don’t know, I was hoping that you could explain. You were always the smart one. As for when, well I think Mikasa could explain that better.”

They both turned towards the half Asian girl, who had sat down while they had talked.

“When we were walking through the forest Historia tripped over a tree root, I reached out and grabbed her before she could fall but when I touched her something happened. I froze up, and I had another ‘vision’, but this one was different. It felt more real than the other times… I heard him Armin, the man. It was her father.” Her voice tapered out, a look of contemplation crosses her face as she recalled whatever it was Annie’s father had said.

Armin was about to say she didn’t have to continue if she didn’t want to when Mikasa starting to talk again “When snapped out of it, I let her go by accident and she fell.” She gestured towards Historia’s head and the bandages wrapping it. “Sorry about that. I don’t know how it happened but whatever caused my ‘vision’ must have affected Historia as well.”

Historia gave a small smile at Mikasa apology, before nodding in agreement with Mikasa’s recollection.

“One minute, I was resting on my porch, Johan had asked me to come in as it was getting late. I was about to when I heard an explosion and saw smoke starting to rise only a mile or two downstream. Then I felt lightheaded and dizzy, I collapsed and the next thing I know I was in that forest.”

“Then what happened?” Armin queried the two girls.

“After getting over the shock, Mikasa explained to me what the two of you had gotten up to whilst you’ve been ‘back’. She told me about the plan you two have to deal with the three shifters. Well two now, I suppose.”

“But I guess my return will change some of your plans, right Armin?” she asked pointedly.

“Actually, you were always part of the plan, well Krista was.”

“You wish for me to become the Queen again.” It was a statement, not a question.

Armin’s eyes flickered towards Mikasa, they had spoken once about Historia’s fate, both had been horrified by it but had viewed it as a necessary evil for the situation Paradise was in at the time.

They wouldn’t allow that to happen again.

“No, we won’t let that happen again if you don’t want to.”

Historia looked surprised by this, her wide eyes locked onto his. Clearly, she hadn't expected that.

“We can take down the government another way, but there is something that we need you for Historia. If we are going to have any chance of winning this war against Marley, we will need as many shifters as possible either on our side or at least not on Marley’s. We already have Eren, and now Mikasa. Soon we will get the Armoured and Colossal, but there is still one more shifter on this island. One who is loyal only to you.”

“Ymir” Historia whispered her name. “She’s alive.”

“You were the only one she seemed to care for Historia, she only revealed her abilities when you were in danger. You don’t need to become the Queen this time, we just need you to keep Ymir on our side.”

Historia looked completely shaken, she must have already resigned herself to going through the same fate again, she could have never guessed this would be Armin’s plan.

“I… I” she started before an argument from outside the tent interrupted her.

“Good job idiot, this is your fault. Now we have to do this all again.”

“My fault?! How is this my fault?”

“You had the map dumbass.”

“And you didn’t listen to my directions! You just wandered off the wrong way!”

“Whatever moron, why don’t you go find your lanky boyfriend and leave me alone.”

 

The three of them left the tent in time to see Reiner storming away from Ymir, muttering something under his breath. Historia has frozen at the sight of Ymir as she stood there smirking at Reiner’s retreating back.

She turned and smiled when she spotted Historia. “Krista, baby. There you are, I was wondering…” she wasn’t able to finish the sentence before a blond cannonball slammed into her midsection.

Historia had wrapped her arms around Ymir and was holding on for dear life. Tears starting to leak from her eyes as she buried her face into Ymir’s chest.

“Krista! What wrong, what happened to your head?” Ymir’s eyes locked onto Mikasa, blazing with anger. “What did you do to my Krista?!”

“Nothing, stupid.” Historia voice was muffled by Ymir’s body “Nothing’s wrong, not anymore. I missed you, that’s all, I missed you so much.”

Ymir was obviously confused about what was happening, but she was never one to reject Historia’s physical contact. She wrapped her arms around the crying blond completing the hug. “I missed you too, babe. Don’t worry, next time Shadis tries to split us up I’ll tell him where he can shove his training exercise instead.”

 

Armin couldn’t help but smile, both at the scene before him and at how this would benefit the plan. He was happy for Historia, he knew she cared deeply for Ymir and if everything went as planned Ymir would stay by her side and the two of them might be able to carve out some happiness in this cruel world.

He also knew that with Historia firmly on their side, that Ymir would be as well. The Jaws titan may be one of the smallest titans but its ability to shatter titan crystals would be of great benefit to them.

With Ymir and Eren or Mikasa working together they could easily take down the Armoured titan. Ymir could tear off chunks of its armoured plating and the other shifter could target these exposed areas. With Ymir, they wouldn’t need the thunder spears to deal with Reiner.

_‘Yes,’_ His smile widened _‘things are going just as planned.’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a spoiler for next chapter:
> 
> ‘Yes, things are going just as planned.’  
> [Narrator voice]  
> Things were not going just as plan
> 
> There's a numbskullz reference in this chapter. Its kinda obvious but an internet cookie for whoever spots it.
> 
> Alright I have something I want to ask you readers, what do you think of the pacing of this story? Both in terms of overall story line and whats included in each chapter.  
> Sometimes I get the feeling that the overall story is going too slow but each chapter is covering too much in not enough detail.  
> Please let me know what you think (be honest, as I cant improve if I dont get real feedback)
> 
> Cheers.


	9. Chaos Theory Pt.1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somethings we cannot escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say this was a fix it fic? Well call me Mr.piss-poor-Isayama-imitator because its all going wrong for our main characters. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think of this chapter. This is the first 'action' chapter I've written so far so I hope I do it justice.

Armin was panicking, there were no two ways about it, he felt like he was right on the very edge of a complete nervous breakdown.

Something had gone wrong; terribly, _terribly_ wrong. He didn’t know how or why but they were In Trost.

They. Were. In. Trost.

They still had nearly 8 months of training left before their graduation, 8 more months before they were supposed to be here. 8 months to deal with Reiner and Bertholdt, but now something had changed that.

Shadis had woken them all up at the crack of dawn and loaded them into wagons. Apparently, they were ‘Going to get some real-world experience as a member of the Garrison.’ seeing as most cadets would end up in that division.

Armin had been dumbfounded; this hadn’t happened the first time round. The only time the entire 104th cadet corps had visited Trost was the day after graduation. The day when everything had changed.

The 104th had been dispersed around Trost; some were on the walls checking and repairing the cannons and rails, some were with them in the armoury while others were simply on patrol around the district. To make the whole situation worse Mikasa, Eren and he had been assigned to the armoury, uploading and loading crates. They completely in the dark, if Bertholdt and Reiner did attack they wouldn’t even have the chance, as small as it would be, to try and stop them.

The stress of this situation wasn’t just affecting him. Even Mikasa’s famous stoicism had been compromised, Armin could see her eyes occasionally darting toward the walls and the outer gate, flickering with worry each time. She was completely ignoring Eren’s complains about their role of moving crates, rather than fighting titans.  

When she wasn’t carrying anything, her hands were clenched into fists, a poor substitute for the sword hilts that should be in them. They were lacking any weapons or 3DMG gear, the garrison commander had decided they wouldn’t need any for their current role. Armin could understand the logic behind that, but it didn’t make him feel any better. If there was an attack valuable time would be lost in getting equipped.

 

Armin tried to calm himself, he told himself that they wouldn’t attack today, they didn’t have any time to prepare, unlike last time.

He told himself that Reiner and Bertholdt’s assignment to the district patrols wouldn’t give them the opportunity to slip away unnoticed, they were with several other cadets and garrison soldiers.

He told himself that without Annie there to support them in case something went wrong that they wouldn’t risk it.

 

He wasn’t even looking at the wall when the orange lightning struck behind the gate, the deafening crack silenced the entire district. Everyone, both military and civilian, had stopped what they were doing and looked towards the gate, wide-eyed and stunned.

Everyone it seemed, except Armin. He had looked down and closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath, the sound seemed to carry across the entire courtyard. The feeling of resignation filled his body; he had been too cautious and wasn’t been fast enough, he had tried to be too clever in securing their powers rather than just killing them outright. He had failed.

 

And now hundreds were going to die.

 

The 60m tall Colossal titan loomed over the wall Rose, peering into the district with its dead, soulless eyes.

Its long orange arm crashed onto the top of the wall, sweeping it across smashing the cannons and rails to pieces.

That was when the screaming started.

Thousands of civilians started running for their lives, screaming as terror gripped the city. Church bells rang out, signalling the immediate evacuation of the district. But all was drowned out in the earth-shattering crash as the Colossal titan kicked in the Trost’s outer gate. Chunks of rock and masonry smashed into the defensive barriers and the nearby buildings, shattering them to pieces on impact.

Any living thing near the gate was torn to shreds by the stone fragments. Dozens of people were killed within the first minute of the attack, the good indicator of what the rest of the battle would be like. 

 

* * *

 

 

“GET MOVING SOLDIERS!”

“GET YOUR GEAR ON!”

“REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING!”

“We’re going to die, oh God, we are all going to die.”

“I think I’m gonna be **_*bleurgh*_** ”

The armoury had devolved into a cacophony of shouted orders and moving bodies, dozens of men and women ran around, carrying weapons and gas or hastily strapping up their 3DMG harnesses.

Some cadets had already fallen to their knees, rocking and sobbing crying out how it ‘wasn’t fair’, and ‘why them’ and mumbling how they don’t want to die.

Soldiers of the garrison looked pale and frightened, and even the most experienced officers of the regiment tried to hide their own fear behind masks of determination and false courage. The ‘masks’ didn’t quite cover the quiver in their voice as they give their commands.

 

Shadis was there, as chief instructor of the 104th training corps he was their superior officer and would command in conjunction with the garrison commander. His expression was utterly grim, it was completely devoid of any other emotion, even the barely contained anger the cadets were so used to seeing.

He looked over the cadets currently present within the armoury, assigning roles and organising squads.

“Arlert, Yeager! You will join Caroline, Wagnar, Tias and Zeramuski in squad 34. You will be in the middle guard defending the area around the Church of the Rose. Ackerman, you will join the elites in the rear guard covering the evacuation.”

Mikasa had opened her mouth to protest her assignment to the rearguard but Shadis had already turned away. He had countless cadets milling about that needed organisation and assignments.

“Come on Armin, let’s go.” Eren said as he started to move towards their squadmates “This is it, this is what we have trained for. Finally, we have the chance for vengeance against these monsters.”

“Eren, Armin.” Mikasa had grabbed Eren’s arm, bring him to a halt as she looked at the two boys “If things take a turn for the worse, I want you both to come find me, alright?”

“What?! We are in completely different squads.” Eren sounded confused at Mikasa request.

“Look, if things go like last… like Shiganshina, this will get ugly and the plan will fall apart. If we are together, we can protect each other, okay?”

“You’re telling us to abandon our squad, our mission?! Who the hell do you think you are?!” Eren angrily interjected, taking a step towards her.

“Eren!” Armin’s already frayed patience had nearly reached its limit, “Have you forgotten how quickly home fell? How quickly the titans tore through the garrison? We are about to go head to head with the most dangerous creatures on earth, there is a very real chance we could die here. Mikasa is just looking out for us, so stop being a dick!”

Eren’s expression when from one of surprise at Armin’s raised voice and curse, to one of anger at the suggestion that he had somehow forgotten the titans tearing apart their home, to finally one of shame and embarrassment at his reaction to Mikasa’s suggestion.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, his bloodlust temporarily forgotten “but I won’t abandon my squad if it gets rough, I won’t leave them like I left Mum.” With that, he stalked off to join Mina and the others.

“Armin…”

“I know Mikasa, I’ll try and keep him safe, but we might not have a choice anymore.”

Mikasa looked around, making sure they were not being eavesdropped “I could do it. We could go right now and move the boulder.”

Armin wanted to say yes, he really did. They could quickly make their way to the breach whilst everyone is still running around, Mikasa could shift and carry the boulder to the shattered gate before any titans could get in.

But he knew it wouldn’t work like that. He shook his head “If you do it, Reiner and Bertholdt will know someone took Annie’s power, they’d know that someone was onto them.”

“You have to keep it hidden, okay? Only if your life in is danger or Reiner is charging the inner gate. Even if Eren or I are in danger, you can’t reveal yourself.”

Mikasa clearly wasn’t happy with that, her lips thinned as her eyes narrowed at the blond boy. There were not many people on Earth who could stare down an unhappy Mikasa Ackerman but fortunately, Armin was one of them.

With a frustrated sigh, she nodded, “Then you’d better stay safe, Armin.”

“I’ll try Mikasa, make sure you do the same.”

The pair departed, making their way towards their respective squads. For the second time in their lives, they would be fighting to defend Trost from the Titans, both hoped that while the couldn’t stop the attack now they might be able to at least save more people than last.

 

* * *

 

 

Trost was burning.

Smoke was billowing near the broken remains of the gate, the nearby buildings burned and collapsed, as a fire began to spread.

Armin watched it from rooftops, the sense of déjà vu was all-consuming. By this point the vanguard would almost be completed wiped out, the cessation of cannon fire had been the first indicator and the head of a 15m class titan poking above the buildings only a few blocks away was all the confirmation he needed. Unfortunately, it would take the higher-ups a while longer before they realised this.

Soon the Titans would reach their position and they would have to fight. He looked at Eren, determination clear on his face as he stared at the distant titans, the white-knuckle grip he had of his sword hilts showed his desire to fight.

The other members of squad 34 stood around them awaiting orders. While nothing had been said, it seemed they had decided that the two of them were the squad leaders and would follow their lead.

“Look at it this way, Armin. It’s a golden opportunity if we prove our worth as soldiers right here, right now, they’ll have to let us graduate early. We could join the survey corps as tested soldiers and skip rookie status altogether, hell, they might even give us command of our own squad!” Eren smiled happily at him.

Armin always thought it was both fascinating and slightly disturbing how quickly Eren’s emotional state could switch. One moment he would be utterly wild, projecting his uncontained hatred and fury towards any foe and then the next he could be calm, happy and joking around.

“Yeah,” he replied returning a small smile, one that certainly didn’t match his actual feelings “that sounds good.”

“Now, now boys. You’re not the only ones here. Save some glory for the rest of us!” Mina quipped at them, amusement evident in her voice. The other three laughed or smiled at the comment.

Armin couldn’t believe it; how could she be joking at a time like this? Unless he did something to save her, she would be dead in within five minutes. All four of them would be.

He ignored the back and forth banter between Thomas and Eren as he continued staring towards the gate. He wanted to yell out or hit something, he felt completely trapped. Ever since they landed on this rooftop he had been planning, trying desperately to think of something he could do to keep them safe.

He’s a better soldier than last time, thanks to his years of experience in the survey corps, but he was no Mikasa. He couldn’t take on half a dozen titans to protect his team.

He knew his best chance was to somehow stop Eren from charging off in a rage and to do that he would need to keep Thomas alive. The Aberrant that killed him had leapt across the block snatching him mid-air and crashing into the church spire with Thomas trapped between its teeth. When the titan swallowed him down, Eren had snapped, screaming for blood and vengeance and launched himself at it. Then everything fell apart.

That couldn’t happen again, so Thomas had to live.

“Squadron 34, move out! The vanguard needs support!” a garrison officer shouted at them from a nearby roof.

“Right! Give ‘em hell!” Eren shouted

Armin didn’t join in the battle cry the others let out _‘You’re only going to have one chance at this Arlert, so don’t mess it up’_ he thought to himself as he fired his grappling hooks and launched himself off the roof.

He flew through the air, fingering the gas trigger timing his release to give him the acceleration needed. He positioned himself so he was flying next to Thomas but kept his eyes locked firmly ahead.

There. Dead ahead, was the jumping abnormal. Armin watched as it tensed up then kick out throwing itself into the air toward them.

He squeezed the left gas trigger for all its worth and he careened into Thomas, smashing into the taller blond and pushing him out of the leaping titans’ path. He didn’t have time to celebrate however, as by saving Thomas he was now directly in the titan’s path.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the titan flew towards him, its salivating maw was wide open, ready to swallow him whole. He squeezed both triggers, pushing himself straight up away from the creature’s mouth, he tensed his core and twisted sideways in mid-air as the titan passed underneath him. He felt the titan’s hair lightly brush against him showing just how close the titan had missed him by. He heard its jaws snapping shut where he been only seconds before.

Either through sheer luck or some divine intervention, Armin had managed to time his manoeuvre perfectly. As he spun round to face the earth again, the titan’s nape passed beneath him. It was completely exposed and almost in touching distance, it was the perfect set up, and one Armin wouldn’t allow to slip through his fingers.

He brought the Iron bamboo swords down, powered by his momentum and the sharpness of the blades they bit deep into the titan’s skin, then cleaved through its nape as if it were made of paper. Blood spurted out and splattered against his face and clothes, signalling his first-ever 3DM titan kill.

Time sped up again as he finished his spin, the now dead titan smashed into the church spire, cracking the stone and shattering the windows. It was stuck there for a moment, lifeless arms had wrapped around it during the impact, until gravity claimed its corpse, peeling it off the church spire.

It fell down to earth with a resounding thud.

 

Armin landed on the nearby rooftop with surprising grace, most of his squad members stared at him with open mouths, completely stunned at what they had just seen.

“Holy shit,” One of them breathed out “you killed it.”

Thomas was the only one not looking solely at Armin. He was staring down at the dead, steaming titan. “That thing was coming straight at me and I just froze up. I… I should be dead.” The colour had drained from his face, and he looked unnaturally pale. “You saved me Armin, thank you.”

Armin didn’t reply, he was completely ecstatic. He had done it; Thomas was alive and completely unharmed, and the Abnormal titan was dead. In that single instant, the feeling of hot titan blood splattered across his face slowly evaporating away was one of the most satisfying moments in his entire life.

It was undeniable proof that he could change things, that he could save them. And by the walls he would, he would save them all…

 

“Come on guys, Armin’s already killed one. Let’s not fall behind!” Eren shouted almost joyfully, as he leapt off the roof towards the titans down the street.

“EREN NOO!!” in an instant any inkling of success he felt completely disappeared, as he watched Eren soar away from him. He didn’t move, stunned at Eren’s utter recklessness.

He could only watch in dismay as a titan jumped up from directly below Eren, and its jaw closing around his leg, severing it in an instant.

Armin moved without thinking, jumping and taking flight as Eren crashed down onto the building, his body smashing into dormers and sliding along the hard tiles. The rest of the squad followed, rushing to the aid of their injured comrade.

Armin had to dive hard left to avoid a titan lumbering in from one of the side streets, Nack was not so lucky. He crashed into its swinging arm at high speed, the terrible impact shattered his body in an instant, an explosion of blood and gore was all that remained of the cadet.

 _‘No, no, no, NO! This can’t be happening, not again!’_ Nacks horrific end had provided Armin with sickening clarity, in his haste to reach Eren he had practically led his squad straight into the Titan’s den.

Mina had shot past him but was suddenly jerked back mid-air and crashed hard into a wall. She was still alive but dazed and winded by the impact.

He looked down at the 4m class titan that had grabbed one of Mina grapple wires, causing her crash and how it was now peered down at Mina. Its long arms reached for her, grabbing her and pulled the screaming girl towards its mouth.

Armin blades sliced across the back of its neck. It was a sloppy kill, fuelled by desperation more than anything, the cut was only just deep enough to kill. The titans grip loosened, and Mina fell from its hand as it died landing hard on the ground she scrabbled backwards, away from its carcass looking utterly terrified. A dark wet patch was spreading down the legs of her trousers.  

“MINA MOVE!” he screamed at her, begging her to get up. He had gotten lucky killing that titan, it had been focused on its upcoming meal rather than him, but he knew that if another titan grabbed her, he wouldn’t be so fortunate.

Against all odds, she did. Shakily she pushed herself up and fired her grappling hooks onto the nearby roof. She landed on her hands and knees and quickly scrambled away from the edge out of reach from any nearby titan before promptly throwing up. Armin landed beside her to check for any injuries.

“NO! PLEASE STOP! I DON’T WANT TO **AAARRRRRGH!** ”

He turned in time to see that Milieus had been grabbed by an 11m class titan which had just bitten of his right arm. Blood poured out of ruined stump as Milieus screamed in agony. Armin was too far away to do anything and could only watch on uselessly.

He had lost another squad member.

 

“LET HIM GO YOU BASTARD!”

Thomas landed directly on the titan's nose, plunging both of his blades deep into its beady eyes. Reddish ichor poured from its ruptured eyeballs as it roared in pain, releasing the screaming Milieus.

In a move that even Shadis would have smiled at, Thomas leapt from the Titans face, diving between its rising hands he grabbed the falling Milieus, before swinging away from the furiously screeching titan. 

Armin couldn’t believe it, Thomas had saved Milieus. He might be missing an arm, but at least he was alive.

Thomas landed heavily next to Armin and the shaking, dry heaving Mina. He placed the whimpering Milieus down and started looking for something to bandage the bleeding stump with, resolve set on his face. He looked as if he was about to say something to Armin before his eyes went wide.

“Oh my god… Eren!”

Armin head snapped round, look to where Eren had fallen. The giant bearded Titan had picked the barely conscious Eren up by his jacket and was dangling him above his gaping pit of a mouth.

“EREN!” Armin screamed helplessly, knowing it was too late.   

The titan let go, dropping Eren straight down its throat, swallowing him whole.

For the second time in his life, Armin watched as the bearded titan swallowed his friend. He felt like someone had punched him square in the stomach and torn it out, all he could do now was hope that Eren would shift.

“W…we have to fall back; this whole area is getting overrun.” He couldn’t let himself fall apart like last time, he still had a squad to command. “Thomas, Mina can you get Milieus back over the wall? He needs proper medical attention.”

“Armin, I… I’m so sorry.” Thomas started before he was cut off.

“Now isn’t the time Thomas, if Milieus don’t get to a doctor soon, he’ll die. Can you two get him there?” Armin’s cold and commanding voice caught both Thomas and Mina off-guard.

They exchanged quick glances before nodding.

“What will you do Armin?” Mina blurts out. She looks dead on her feet; exhaustion, shame and fear had sapped the vitality from her face. This was her first real battle and she had nearly been killed.  She had thrown up and lost control of her bladder due to the sheer unadulterated terror of her close encounter with the Titan.

Armin didn’t judge her for that, but he knew he was doing the right thing by sending her, Thomas and Milieus to safety. He may have lost Nack, and Milieus had lost his arm but at least those three would live.

“I’ll rendezvous with the other squads, now go!” he pointed towards the wall with one of his swords to emphasise his order.

 

As the pair departed carrying their wounded comrade, leaving Armin alone on the roof. He turned back towards the Bearded Titan, it hadn’t moved at all since it swallowed Eren, just continued staring up into the sky.

“Come on Eren, we need you. You have to fight.” He whispered to himself.

_Thud, Thud_

_Thud, Thud_

_Thud, Thud_

He can feel his heart beating against his chest as he stares at the Titan, doubt creeping into his mind. What if Eren can’t shift? What if he is too badly injured? What if he was crushed in the titan’s oesophagus or drowning in its stomach acid. What if…

 

An arm suddenly punches out of the titan’s mouth, open palm reaching towards the sky. Steam erupts out of its mouth at the massive internal damage caused by the giant arm.

The titan stumbles and falls as its body morphs and stretches, skin and muscle being pushed and torn from the inside, bulging out as something starts to stand within the titan. Then like an overripe fruit being dropped from a height, it explodes. Blood splashing against the buildings and road, some even reaching Armin’s boots despite being several stories up.

Like some morbid rebirth, a new titan rises from the ruins of the old. This titan was different than the others. Its proportions were normal, its arms and legs the right size for its body, its torso was broad and muscular. An impish face with piercing green eyes could be seen through its blood-covered black hair.

Steam blasted out between its sharp exposed teeth, as the new titan tilted its head back and opened its mouth.

Relief flooded through Armin as Eren roared for all of Trost to hear.

 

* * *

 

 

Since she joined their squad the other soldiers had been giving her funny looks. They couldn’t understand why a cadet, a not even graduated cadet, had been assigned to their squad. They were some of the most experienced, longest-serving soldiers the Trost Garrison had to offer, and in their minds, they had been assigned a liability they couldn’t afford during this battle.

Deep down Mikasa was almost looking forward to once again disabusing them of that notion. She was not weak, so was no liability.

The rear guard had been broken up into teams of 4 and had been spread out to cover the streets approaching the inner gate. She didn’t know any of her team members names and she didn’t care to learn them, they were not important.

Across the burning district is where the actual important people are; Eren, Historia, Jean, Connie, Sasha… Armin. They had been put right in the thick of the fighting while she had once again been assigned to the back.

Why would command place the best soldiers to the back, away from the enemy whilst sending the untested cadet in front? She didn’t know if it was cowardness or incompetence, but it made her blood boil all the same.

 

“INCOMING TITAN! ON MAIN STREET!”

An abnormal titan barrelled past them, completely ignoring the soldiers as it ran towards the gate. Its arms were flailing wildly behind its back as it smashed into buildings, kicking a wandering soldier out of its path. Its head swayed side to side, but its hungry eyes remained fixed on the large cluster of civilians by the open gate.  

The elites pursued it, shocked at its behaviour.

“Why is this son of a bitch ignoring us?!”

“It’s an abnormal. Stop trying to figure it out!”

“He’s too fast! There’s no way we can get to him before he reaches the gate!”

 

Mikasa charged past them, ignoring their surprised yells. She fires her grappling hook directly into the Titans nape, and with a burst of gas, she covers the remain distance at breakneck speed before slashing her blades across the target. The abnormal titan comes crashing down, its face scrapping along the cobblestone road as it slides, before coming to a stop barely a metre away from the rabble of the terrified civilians.

“Excellent timing. You, make these morons push my wagon through.” The fat merchant demanded, pointing at her. Once again, his selfishness and greed was holding up the evacuation.

She jumped off the steaming corpse, landing before the crowd. The civilians parted for her, like the sea once did in one of Armin’s old books, as she stalked towards the merchant.

“My comrades are dying back there, trying to hold back the titans so Trost can be evacuated. They are being torn apart because this gate is still open.”

“You think I care?” the overweight, balding man sneered “They’re soldiers, it’s their duty to die protecting us. Don’t get all teary-eyed at me because you have to earn your keep after all these years!”

She came to a stop, pointing one of her blunted blades at him, “Remove the wagon, or you’ll find out how effective these swords are against humans.”

“Who the hell do you think you are, bitch?! You two, go teach her some respect!”

Two of his bodyguards charged at her, fists raised ready to strike. She ducked under them and slammed the flat edge of her blades against the back of their heads, knocking them out.

Now the merchant looked afraid, “Don’t you have any idea who I am?! I’m Dimo Reeves, the richest man in this shithole district, my taxes pay for your wages, your gear and your training! I own you!”

_‘Ackermans. A lost clan who lost their true selves, created only to follow orders.’_

_‘In over words, **slaves**.’_

The merchants head snapped back violently, a sickening crack broke the silence. He fell on his arse screaming in pain, blood pouring from his broken nose.

“Nobody owns me.” She spat out at him in a tone so cold it could have frozen fire. The man’s blood-covered her fist from the hard punch.

She looked at up his two remaining bodyguards by the wagon, challenging them, daring them to do come to the crying man’s aid.

They didn’t.

“Move the wagon.” She growled out at them.

They did.

 

Mikasa watched as the civilians passed through the gate, the wagon had been moved and abandoned as she’d ordered, and the remaining bodyguards had dragged the sobbing merchant away.

“You’re amazing! Thank you miss.” A young girl, no more than 11 stood before her, looking up at her with a smile.

The girl was younger than last time Mikasa had seen her, locked in that prison cell, but she still recognised her, Louise Howe.

Originally the girl had been inspired by her actions during Trost and had joined the military wanting to follow in Mikasa’s footsteps. She’d idolised her and had signed onto the survey corps, hoping to get closer to her.

But then she fell in with Floch and the Yeagerists, betrayed both her and the survey corp. She was one of the soldiers responsible for leaking information about Eren’s arrest, which had turned the public against them.

“You saved our lives, miss. All of us are in your debt.” Louise’s mother was holding tightly to her daughter’s shoulders, as she thanked her.

Mikasa could already see the hero-worship starting to form on Louise’s expression, but she was determined to put a stop to that. She wouldn’t inspire another traitor to her corps.

“Did you not hear what I said? People are dying so you can evacuate, we need to close the gate.”

That made Mrs Howes realise she and her daughter were still within the titan infested Trost, with the gate wide open. She gave a brief nervous apology before quickly dragging Louise through the gate without another word.

 

When the last civilian passed through the gate, one of the rear-guard fired off a green flare, indicating the evacuation was complete and signally the second part of the plan was now in effect.

The heavy inner gate started to descent, sealing off Trost from the rest of Wall Rose territory, as the rear-guard regrouped on the nearby roof as the rain started to fall.

“Good work Ackerman, walls knows what would have happened if that Titan had reached the civvies.” The leader of the elite squad, Ian Dietrich praised her, looking surprised that a cadet had achieved something his team could not.

She nodded as she replaced her dull blades.

“Alright stage two of the plan is now in effect, we are to withdraw from Trost and make for the top of the wall. There we can organise and prepare for our counter-attack.”

Mikasa had no intention of leaving Trost yet, not while Eren and Armin were still in the city.

Without warning she abandoned the roof, heading towards where she knew the other cadets would be gathering.

“Ackerman! Wait, get back here!” his orders were meant nothing to her while their safety was still in question.

 

Titan after titan fell to her blades, as she carved a bloody path through Trost. Darting from foe to foe, she was like the grim reaper of myth and legend but wielding two swords and wearing a scarf, rather than a scythe and cloak.

Here, she was in her element. Flying through the air, cutting down titans left, right and centre. She would unleash her full fury upon them.

And they would learn to fear her.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, before the pitchforks and torches come out, Trost is such a important moment in the AoT story; it where Eren's powers are revealed and when the cadets got their first taste of battle.
> 
> Frankly its difficult to imagine a canon universe fiction without including the battle of Trost in one form or the other.
> 
> There will probably be three chapters in this Trost 'Arc' from the gate to the trial  
> Originally it was going to be one massive chapter but seeing as this was already over 5000 words long, I thought it best to break it up a bit.
> 
> One final point, if a character doesn't have name such as Farmer-kun (I named him Johan last chapter) or is missing a last name like Louise I will just make one up (Howes). 
> 
> Completely pointless fact: Mina is actual one of my favorite minor dead character (don't know why tbh) and while I may have given her a rough time in this chapter she will have a bigger role in this story.


	10. Chaos Theory Pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, let me just apologise both for the quality and delay in this chapter. I have been insanely busy this week, the few times I got any time to write I was too tired to do much.  
> So this chapter was written in a number of small burst and I think that shows in the poorer quality.
> 
> I also tried to put a few more emotional scenes in this chapter, but they may have fallen flat. Again apologies.
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoy it.

The rain continued to fall upon Trost, fat drops of water splashed against its cobbled streets and its white brick buildings. When the wind picked up, the rain fell sideways, blinding anyone standing against it.

During his years in the scouts, Armin had learnt to hate the rain. It was one of the three things that all scouts came to share, regardless of gender, age or experience.

A morbid sense of humour, the ability to drink any non-scout under the table and coming to despising the rain.

After all what could be worse than risking life and limb against gigantic man-eating monsters in the wildlands beyond the relative safety of the walls? Doing it whilst soaked to the bone and freezing their ba… _bits_ off.

 

As Armin travelled across Trost he felt his displeasure bubbling just beneath the surface. The rain lashed against his face, forcing him to squint to keep the water out of his eyes. His uniform was already soaked through, the thin white shirt under his soggy jacket was nearly see-through and his harness straps were rubbing against his skin through the wet material with a vengeance.

In short, he was cold, miserable, half-blinded and his skin was being rubbed raw. The joys of being a soldier…

Perhaps the only good thing to come from nature’s intervention was the extinguishing of the fires spreading through Trost. The sputtering black smoke was all that remained of the blaze that threatened to engulf the city. At least now they wouldn’t have to fight in a titan infested kiln.

 

He knew from memory the other cadets would be gathering on top of the District Town Hall. It was a good central location for the mid-guard to regroup at, as it was practically right in the middle of Trost. But that did mean it was also the furthest point away from the walls.

With the impending gas crisis the cadets would soon face, they would come to regret picking that spot to recuperate at. Now they didn’t have a choice about retaking the armoury if they wanted to make it over the walls.

He had left the rampaging Eren behind to re-join the cadets. He doubted his friend was consciously controlling his titan at that moment, so trying to directly lead Eren anywhere right now would likely end in disaster and if it didn’t, it would be very difficult to explain to the others how he was commanding a 15m class titan around.

But when he pictured the looks on their faces, he wonders if it would have been worth the incredible risk.

 

Armin noticed how strangely quiet the city had become. With the evacuation complete, the church bells had ceased ringing and the screaming civilians were now behind wall rose. Without a squad beside him, the only sounds he could make out was the falling rain, the wind and his own breathing as he soared through the air. In a strange way it could almost be described as peaceful.

 

And that made what he came across next so much worse.

 

“No, no, no, please Franz, please!” On the street below Hannah Diamant, the normally kind and cheerful girl was weeping over the mutilated body of her boyfriend, Franz Kefka.

Armin landed opposite her, getting a clear look at Franz. Even with everything he had seen in his life, the sight of a person who had been bitten clean in half turned his stomach. He called her name as he knelt down next the Franz, careful to avoid the puddle of blood which surrounded his lower half, not sure if she was aware of his presence.

 

“Oh Armin, thank the Gods. Franz is hurt, he needs help.” the freckled girl spared him only a second glance before turning back to her boyfriend.

Armin was no doctor, but he had read plenty of medical books and seen countless injuries in his life. He knew that Franz’s wounds were fatal, no normal human could survive injuries like that, the shock and the blood loss alone would…

A bloody, hacking cough interrupted his thoughts, as he looked down, wide-eyed, and completely lost for words. Franz was still alive.

“Ha…hann..ah.” the voice from the ruined boy was scarcely above a whisper.

“Hold on Franz. Look, Armin is here now, he can help you. You’re going to be alright now, okay?” The girl held the boy’s hand, and lightly stroked his short black hair as she spoke.

Slowly Franz’s head turned towards him, his face was ghostly pale, and blood dribbled out his open mouth. His glassy eyes found Armin’s downcast ones and a moment of understanding passed between them.

Franz realised that he going to die, his injuries were catastrophic, and he knew there was nothing Armin could do to help him. But Franz had clung to life, not because he thought he might survive, but to do one last thing.

Slowly, Franz’s bloody hand shakily reached towards him and Armin grasped it with his own, as what little of Franz’s remaining strength started to fade away.

“Ar… armin…” his hand now lay limp in Armin’s grip, as his voice grew softer with every word, “get… han… safe… please.”

He squeezed the dying boy’s hand, trying to offer some comfort in his last moments.

“I will Franz, I promise.” He didn’t realise he was crying until the first tear fell onto their joined hands, only to be washed away by the rain.

“Tha… nk you” Franz let out with his last ragged breath before his eyes slowly closed and did not open again.

 

“Franz?! Franz! Noo!” Hannah let out an agonised wail as she started performing CPR, desperately hoping to bring him back.

 _‘That’s another death on your hands, Arlert. Another victim to your failure.’_ A cruel, spiteful voice echoed in his mind. He had seen and caused death so many times before; friend and foe alike, but this had been the first time someone had practically died in his arms.

He may have never been that close to Franz, in either life, but the good-natured boy had always been kind and friendly, he never mocked or insulted anyone and only ever wanted for everyone to get along.

To watch as the life slowly drained out of him had shaken Armin to his very core.

During his first life, Franz was already dead when he came across Hannah trying to revive him. He tried to tell her he was dead, but Hannah wouldn’t listen. So, he had left her, like a coward, emotionally broken and clinging to Franz’s body on the street.

He had been the last person to ever see them, neither of their remains had been found during the post-battle clean-up.

 

He wiped the tears from his eyes and stood up. He couldn’t save Franz, but he would fulfil his promise to him.

He moved next to Hannah, taking care to avoid stepping over Franz’s body. The girl seemed completed oblivious to his movement, as she continued to perform chest compressions and mouth to mouth.

He crouched down next to the crying girl, placing his hand on her heaving shoulder. “We need to get off the street Hannah, it’s too dangerous to stay down here.”

“What? No, we can’t leave. Franz needs help!”

“I’m so sorry Hannah, but Franz… he’s gone.”

“Don’t say that! He’s not dead, he’s not!” She shouted at him, anger and grief thick in her voice.

Armin bit his lower lip, not sure how to proceed. He had little to no experience with dealing with crying girls, especially ones in the midst of anguished denial. They couldn’t stay here, a titan could arrive at any moment, and he had promised Franz to save Hannah.

He hooked his arms under hers, lifting her up as he pulled her away from Franz’s remains. She screamed and struggled, desperate to break away from his grip.

“NOO! GET OFF ME! FRANZ!”

“I’m sorry Hannah but we can’t stay here.”

“LET GO OF ME!” Armin caught an elbow to the side of the face but managed to hold on.

“Hannah, HANNAH! Please listen to me…” Unexpectedly, the girl’s screaming died down slightly. She was still fighting against his grip, and he knew if he relaxed, she would break free.

“I know how you’re feeling, believe me I know. I know the pain, the loss and the suffering. I’ve felt it too. I’ve lost countless friends and family, people I loved and cared for, people I would give my life to bring back. It’s painful, I know that it’s so painful.”

“But Franz loved you, he loved you so much. He held on until he knew you would be safe, that you would survive. Please, don’t let that be in vain.”

With a final soul-rending wail, her resolve broke and she went slack in his arms, the overwhelming grief draining the fight from her. Taking his chance, Armin span her round and scooped her legs up, carrying her bridal style. She wrapped her arms around him as she buried her face into his shoulder, the floodgate of tears fully opened.

 

With a final glance back at the lifeless Franz and whispered, “I’m sorry”, before turning around and firing off his grappling hooks and took off into the sky.

Hannah continued to cry quietly on his shoulder as he silently carried her across the city.

 

* * *

 

 

Their landing on the roof wasn’t easy, 3DM gear could be difficult to use at the best of times but using it while carrying someone made it infinitely more demanding. Armin nearly toppled over, not anticipating the effect Hannah’s weight had on his centre of gravity but managed to right himself just in time.

He looked around, assessing the situation. The rooftop was filled with dozens of cadets all milling about. Most were sitting down looked exhausted or resigned, some tapped at their gas canisters hoping that somehow more gas might suddenly materialise. He could see Jean and Marco sitting together, and a handful of others he knew well. Distressingly, there seemed to be fewer cadets present than there had been last time. Armin hoped it was because he had arrived sooner than before, as he hadn’t gone catatonic after Eren’s ‘death’ like last time.  

He knew that if there were going to survive this, he would have to take control but right now wasn’t the time. Despite him likely being in the top 10 now, he knew that the other cadets didn’t see him as proper leadership material, he didn’t have the commanding presence of Mikasa or the sheer bloody-mindedness Eren possessed.

He decided to wait until Mikasa arrived, and then together they would whip their comrades into shape and retake the armoury.  

 

“Hannah!” a girl with short black hair ran over to them, turning some heads with her yell. Armin started to feel slightly self-conscious under their combined gazes, as he was still carrying the sobbing Hannah.

“What happened?” she asked him. He couldn’t recall the girl’s name but remember she was often sitting with Hannah and Franz during meals. She must be one of their friends.

“I think her squad was wiped out, I found her and…” his words died in his throat as a muffled wail picked up. He looked at the girl, trying to convey the information about Franz with his eyes.

The heartbroken expression that appeared on her face showed she understood.

“Oh Hannah, I’m so sorry.” She reached out to comfort her grieving friend.

Armin gently pried Hannah off of him, allowing the girl to pull her friend into a hug. Armin quietly pulled away from the hugging pair, knowing that she would do a better job of helping the grieving Hannah than he could.

 

 

It takes around 20 minutes before Mikasa joins them, landing on the roof with unmatched grace. In that time the rooftop had swelled with additional cadets; Historia, Ymir, Connie, Sasha and a dozen more had joined them.

As had Reiner and Bertholdt.

It had taken Armin a great deal of self-control to not march straight up to them and run them through with his blades. The sight of them standing around, acting as if they were not fully responsible for this disaster, had filled him with rage.

Bastards, treacherous bastards both.

 

The half Asian cadet headed straight toward him, completely ignoring Jean’s flustered questions about her safety and health.

“Armin, are you alright?”

“I’m fine Mikasa, I take it that was you?” he gestured towards the rising haze of steam from the direction of the inner gate.

She raises an eyebrow, seemingly bemused he even needs to ask. “Where’s Eren and the rest of your squad?”

Armin noticed a few nearby cadets were not so subtly listening in, they must have noticed that Eren wasn’t with him and also wanted to know what had happened.

“A titan got Nack, and Milieus lost his arm. I told Mina and Thomas to get him over the wall and to a doctor. Eren… Eren was swallowed by a titan.” He slightly emphasised the word swallowed, hoping Mikasa would understand that Eren was still alive and he was now tearing through Trost in titan form, but to the eavesdropping cadets it just sounded like someone in denial over a dead friend.

 

There’s a flicker of concern in her eyes when she hears about Eren’s fate.

She had told him several weeks after their return that she no longer had that ‘bond’ Eren had told them about; she no longer received headaches when she didn’t intervene in Eren and Jean constant fights, or when contemplating smacking him over the head for doing something stupid.

But she still cared about him and no-one wants to hear something like that had happened to their friend, even one who could turn into a 15m tall titan.

“I see…” she states slowly, before looking around. The prying cadets quickly looked away, not wanting to be caught spying by Mikasa. “We can’t stay here much longer. The rear-guard has already withdrawn, and that gate has been sealed.”

“Yeah, it’s time to leave. Let’s go gather the troops.”

 

Together they walk toward the building edge, as they looked across the city. The armoury dominated the Trost skyline; ignoring the walls, it was the largest structure within the district and had been constructed on a hill, further raising it above the rest of the city.

Even from here, Armin could see the titans surrounding it, scratching at its mighty walls trying to reach the few survivors still trapped inside.

 

He took a deep breath as he turned to face the cadets. He channelled his inner Instructor Shadis and opened his mouth.

“104th, FALL IN!” he shouted, inwardly cringing at how strange it sounded for his shrill voice to fire off military commands.         Despite his complete lack of authority, muscle memory had most of the cadets on their feet and facing him in an instant.

Excellent. He had their attention, now he needed to keep it and convince them to follow him.

“As most of you know, the evacuation of Trost has been completed and the rear-guard has now pulled out of the city. As per the original plan, we are to withdraw with them.”

Before he could continue Jean interrupted him, “How the hell are we supposed to do that, Arlert? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we barely have enough gas to reach the wall, let alone get over it!”

“We are not going for the walls. As Jean says we don’t have the gas needed to leave Trost, so that leaves us with only one option.” He pointed behind him. “We will retake the armoury from the Titans.”

There was an oppressive silence at that declaration, his fellow trainees couldn’t quite believe what they had heard. He wanted them to fly halfway across the titan infested city, clear out Gods knows how many titans surrounding the building, all with minimal gas and limited blades.

The idea was almost too insane to comprehend. However, such stunned disbelief could not last.

“You what?!”

“Are you mad?!”

“Forget that! The titans have it surrounded!”

“Hell no! That’s suicide.”

“Who the hell put you in charge?!”

Dozens of voices cried over each other, openly expressing their fear, disbelief or anger. All of which were directed entirely at him.

Clearly, they didn’t approve of his plan.

 

“Enough!” Mikasa’s snapped at the baying cadets. The anger in her voice was more than enough to silence the others.

 

“You hide on this rooftop, begging and praying for someone to save you, yet when Armin offers you the chance to fight for your own survival, you refuse. You are not soldiers, you are just pitiful weaklings and cowards.” She accusingly pointed her sword at the still cadets, before raising it in the air in defiance.

“But Armin and I are not weak. We are strong, stronger than the rest of you combined. We didn’t spend years of our lives training to fight and survive, only to simply lay down and die when things get difficult. We refuse to cower and wait for our enemy to devour us.”

“Even if we have to do it alone, we will head for the armoury. If we lose, then we go down fighting, weapon in hand, as a real soldier should. But if we win, we survive. And the only way to win is to fight!”

She turned away from them looking towards their eventual destination. Armin wasn’t sure if the notes of disgust in her voice was real or if this was part of an act but knowing the girl, he doubted it was the latter.

 

Most of the cadets looked suitably chastened and shamefaced at Mikasa’s hard words. They had all been so eager to voice their objections to his plan, but none could bring themselves to protest Mikasa holding up a mirror to their flaws.

Eventually, a quiet desperate voice once more breaks the silence, “But how? How are we supposed to get there? Most of us are running on fumes, and there are dozens of titans standing in our way. They’ll slaughter us, and there is nothing we can do to stop them.” A few other cadets nod or mutter in support, sharing similar thoughts and concerns.

 

Many years ago, during the planning to retake Shiganshina Commander Erwin had told Armin that doubt was infectious, it could spread from person to person faster than any plague and could be just as debilitating. A soldier consumed by doubt on the field will, quite literally, be consumed.

If he wanted the cadets to follow them, if he wanted them to survive, he would have to prevent it from spreading further.

 

“We can make it. Look at how Trost has been designed, can’t you see how most of these buildings have been constructed? They have been built in large, continuous blocks, well out of reach of all but the tallest titans. If you are really low on gas, stick to running across the rooftops where possible, you’ll only need to use it when jumping to the next block. This will be slower, but you won’t end up falling out of the sky.”

“As for the titans, they are not invincible. I’ve already killed two, Mikasa has killed over a dozen and I reckon we are not the only ones. Just remember your training; aim for the napes and don’t keep your arms and legs dangling.”

Some cadets looked more hopeful, but more still looked doubtful. Armin suppressed a sigh, they were running out of time. Perhaps it was time for a change in tactics.

“Ultimately, Mikasa is right. There are only two outcomes left for us now. You either stay here and die, or you fight. Now is the time to figure out what kind of person you truly are.”

With that he turned away, joining Mikasa as they focused on the objective at hand.

“You ready?” she whispers to him. He nods slightly as the rain continued to bathe the city, cleansing its blood-filled streets.

Together they jumped off the roof.

 

* * *

 

 

Without the grief of Eren’s supposed death pushing her on, Mikasa was using her gas at a far more sustainable rate. It didn’t decrease her lethality however, as she continued to carve through any titans that stood in her way.

They were nearly halfway to the armoury now, and the number of titans was increasing. There seemed to be two or three of the monsters at every junction, each trying, with various degrees of success, to grab one of the passing cadets.

Armin let out a blast of gas to propel himself over a large titan, dodging its grasping hand. As he reached the apex of his manoeuvre, he fired off his grappling hooks while squeezed the gas-triggers to reach the next block.

But nothing happened.

He squeezed again, harder this time, panic starting to rise within him as yet again nothing happens. His hooks did not fire, and gas was not expelled.

There’s a moment of weightlessness as he finally reaches the top of his arch, a second or two of simply gliding through the air before gravity starts to pull him down.

 

Armin almost wants to laugh as he realised what’s happened, for all his words and plans to the other cadets he didn’t think to check his own gas supply.

It was a stupid, idiotic mistake. It was one of the many things that training had relentless drummed into his head. Whenever you get a chance, always check your gas supply. But like a greenhorn cadet on his first day of training he hadn’t.

He had been relying on his memories of last time, remembering that he had enough gas to reach the armoury. He had been focusing on Mikasa, more concerned about her supply than his own.

But things were different now. He had used far more gas this time; he’d killed two titans which required precious gas to manoeuvre himself for the killing blow and he had carried Hannah for a time which used up further gas. He must have been running on fumes, and now those fumes were gone.

 

_‘Good job Arlert. Apparently, time travel doesn’t save you for your own stupidity…’_

He plummeted like a stone, crying out in shock as he fell. He could see the building below rapidly rising to meet him, the only thing he could do was to brace himself knowing full well this was going to hurt.

He heard someone screaming his name as he smashed onto building below, tumbling across the hard tiles before slipping straight over the edge into the alleyway below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Urrgh…” a loud groan was the first sign of his returning consciousness. Armin cracked open an eye, squinting into the sky. Everything was blurred and spinning, and his head was throbbing painfully as a trickle of blood flowed down his face from the small cut on his forehead.

He slowly pushed himself up, headache worsening as he moved, and spat out a glob of bloody saliva onto the floor. He looked around the dirty alleyway he found himself in, as he sat upon a large metal dustbin, which now had a human-sized dent in it.

_‘How did I get… oh right, the fall.’_

Pieces of broken of wood and metal laid around him, they were all that remained of his 3DM gear. He must have landed on it during the crash, breaking his fall. That had probably saved his life but now he was stranded at street level with no way out.

He rested his bruised and scraped hands against his head, massaging his temples trying to relieve the pressure from his pounding head. It didn’t seem to work as the thudding only seem to worsen, at first, he thought his head was going to split in two. The thudding was so intense it shook his vision.

When his entire body started to shake with it, he realised the thudding wasn’t just from his head.

At the end of the filthy backstreet a smiling, potbellied titan was slowly walking towards him.

“There’s no way my luck is that bad.” he deadpanned.

 

He threw himself off the dumpster trying to get out of reach of the titan. His body protested at the rapid movement as he landed hard on the cobbled floor, narrowly avoiding the monster’s hand.

He scrambled away, pushing himself back onto his feet. He desperately searching for any type of weapon he could use against the crouching titan. His eyes fell on a large jagged fragment of one of his blades, which must have sheered off in the fall. There was no hilt attached to it, so it sunk deep into his flesh, cutting through skin and muscle when he snatched it up and slashed it against the titan's outstretched fingers.

In response the titan simply batted him away, sending him flying further down the alley and robbing him of his ‘weapon’.

 

It takes all the strength he has to get back up, every muscle in his body is crying out in pain from the abuse it has taken both in the fall and the fight. His heart is beating painfully against his chest, and he struggles to breathe, semi-winded by the titan’s blow.

He sways unsteadily on his feet, bloody hand cradling his bruised ribs, wondering how he was going to make it out of this situation. His racing mind came to a screeching halt as another set of thudding started to come from behind him.

He twisted around, dreading what he would see. There was only one thing that could create that noise, only one thing that could shake the ground as it moved. It was another Titan.

Apparently, the powers that be had decided he’d had enough bad luck for now and decided to take mercy on him. Whilst it was another titan that appeared behind him, this one was different. Very different.

“Eren…” he breathed out falling to his knees in relief, as the familiar green-eyed titan loomed over him.

Eren let out a terrible roar as he punched the other titan to the ground, the force of the blow was enough to shatter every window in the alleyway. Shards of glass fell like raindrops.

Before the fallen titan could get off its back Eren stormed over to it and repeatedly stomp down on its head, intending to destroy the nape by going straight through it. It was a brutal and awe-inspiring display of titan on titan combat.

 

The pure titan was still twitching and shuddering helplessly under the blows when someone yells his name from behind. Before he can turn around to see who, a blur of black and red slams into him, driving the air from his lungs as he is yanked off the street and into the air.

They landed heavily on the nearby roof with Armin being held tightly in his saviour’s embrace.

“Armin, I…I saw you fall, I didn’t know… I thought…” Mikasa fell silent for a moment, seemingly debating what to say, “This isn’t what ‘stay safe’ means Armin!”.

At this point Armin was just thankful to be off the street and just looked up at Mikasa with a pained smile, “I’m sorry ‘Kasa. I was stupid and careless, but I’m alright now. Thank you… thank you for coming back for me.”

She gave a rare smile as she held him close, “I’ll always come back for you Armin.”

She ran her eyes over his body, checking for injuries as he lay in her arms. She frowned at the dozens of small scrapes and cuts he now had but gave an audible gasp when she saw his hand.

Careful she pulled up his hand, inspecting the injury in more detail, “Armin, what happened?”

“It’s nothing, I picked up a fragment of my blade when that titan tried to grab me.” Armin tried to pull his hand out of her grasp, not wanting to cause her undue concern, but Mikasa had no intention of letting it go.

“That isn't ‘nothing’ Armin, that’s a deep cut. We need to stop the bleeding.” Without a second thought, she started unravelling her ever-present scarf from around her neck.

“Wait, Mikasa, you don’t have to…” the no-nonsense look she shot him told him that he wouldn’t talk her out of this.

Both were silent as she delicately wrapped the old red scarf around his bleeding hand, taking great care to avoid aggravating the wound further. Unlike most soldiers, her hands were still soft and smooth, despite the years of training. It was a side effect of the titan healing ability, for the skin to constantly heal preventing callouses and scarring.

He shivered slightly as her fingers lightly brushed against the back of his hand.

When the entirety of the scarf was around his hand and forearm, Mikasa held the back of his hand, moving it up so she could inspect the quality of the temporary dressing.

 

“You didn’t need to do that Mikasa, I know how much it means to you.” Armin nearly jumps at how loud his own voice sounds after the extended period of silence.

She gives him a strange look, as her dark grey eyes met his bright blue ones. “It’s just a scarf Armin, you’re more important.”

For some reason that causes his breath to hitch. He knew the history behind that scarf, and how it became Mikasa’s. He knew how much it meant to her, he distinctly remembered, when they first joined the cadets, that she beat one of the trainees nearly unconscious when he accidentally caught it, tearing it slightly. It had never been ‘just a scarf’ to her.

She rarely allowed others to touch it (he and Eren were the few exceptions), let alone wear it. So, to see it wrapped around his hand as a makeshift bandage was a surreal experience.

Suddenly, she broke eye contact, hiding her face as she looked back down at his hand.

 

Armin got the impression she had wanted to say something more and found that he did as well. Simply saying ‘thank you’ just seemed wrong; almost disrespectful after such an intimate gesture, but he knew that saying nothing was a far worse option.

Swallowing his uncertainty, he opened his mouth, “Mikasa, I…”

 

The sudden arrival of Connie shattered the strange tension that had built between the two. Armin wasn’t sure if he felt relieved or annoyed at the buzzcut cadet’s abrupt appearance.

“Are you guys alright?” he asked them, a slight tremor in his voice from the wild flight across Trost.

Mikasa loosened her grip on him and let go of his hand, allowing Armin to shuffle out of her embrace and stand up.

“We’re fine Connie.” Mikasa replied as she stood, brushing a rogue strand of hair from her face.

“Great, then we better get out of here. Oh crap! Two 15m titans!”

All three of them watched as Eren squared off against another titan, letting out a challenging roar as he raised his fists in front of him, ready to fight. Connie gasped at a titan using a recognisably human fighting stance.

The other titan answered with a roar of its own and swung wildly at Eren accepting the challenge. It barely moves before Eren’s punch smashes its head clean off its body, muscle and flesh tearing under the force. Its decapitated head is sent flying across Trost, eventually crashing into a church tower.

“Holy shit…” Connie mutters.

The pain seemed to fade from his battered, weary body as Armin smiled. Now was the time to bring Eren fully into the fight.

“Connie, fancy giving me a lift to the armoury? I have another plan and Mikasa will need both hands free for this to work.”

 

* * *

 

 

After that point everything happened similar to last time; Mikasa cut a path through the titans in their way, leading the roaring Eren toward the armoury, as Connie carried Armin close behind.

With the very last puff of gas, all three smashed through one of the armoury’s mosaic windows, landing in front of a petrified Jean, who had just witnessed Eren punching two 15m titans to the ground. After a brief explanation, claiming Eren was simply an ‘abnormal’ titan, Armin and Mikasa lead the surviving cadets towards the basement.

There was one small change however, apparently there were only 6 titans in the supply room rather than the 7 there had been last time. Armin had been curious as to why, but soon realised he shouldn’t be complaining about there being one less titan to deal with. He gives out the same plan as last time, lowering a majority of the cadets down in the supply elevator, and shooting out the titan’s eyes, while several of the strongest cadets; Sasha, Connie, Mikasa, Jean, Bertholdt and Reiner would strike from above.

Anticipating Connie and Sasha to fail again, he asked Ymir and Historia to join them ‘just in case’, Ymir had tried to protest that, not willing to put ‘her Krista’ at risk but the blond girl had simply nodded and pulled the protesting Ymir along.

Having a backup plan was something he missed last time and he wasn’t going to risk it this time. 

 

Turned out it was the right thing to do. While Mikasa had killed the titan Sasha missed, she couldn’t reach Connie’s one without 3DM gear. Fortunately, Historia jumped from the ceiling beam and took it down. Armin saw a genuine smile stretch across her face as she achieved her third titan kill. 

Not wanting to lose the command authority he now had over the cadets, he ordered them to quickly resupply; filling up gas containers and grabbing spare blades, while he went to find a replacement set of 3DM gear. This time there were no complaints.

 

As everyone geared up and prepared to withdraw from Trost, Armin quietly pulled Marco aside.

No one knew for sure how Marco had died, but from the fact Annie had been using his 3DMG after Trost Armin assumed the traitors had something to do with it. Marco must have died at some point during the counter-attack as he had still been alive during the withdrawal. So, if Armin could stop him from joining the assault, he would survive.

“Marco, when we get over the wall, could you do me a favour?”

“Sure Armin, we’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for your plans, so I definitely owe you one. What do you need?”

 

“Could you find Mina, Thomas and Milieus and make sure they’re okay? Milieus was badly injured, so I told the other two to get him over the wall and to the infirmary.”

 

“Yes, of course I’ll check on them. But can I just ask why you can’t do it?”

 

He gave the freckled boy a half-smile, “I would, but I’ve got the feeling I’m going to very busy soon and that my time in Trost isn’t over yet.”

 

Five minutes later, Marco watches as that strange abnormal titan falls, missing both arms yet surrounded by a dozen steaming titan corpses and against all odds a person pulls himself out from its split nape. As if that wasn’t bizarre enough, the person in question was the infamous titan hater, and supposedly dead, Eren Yeager.

The few cadets left in Trost travelled silently, as the unconscious Eren was carried by a grim-looking Mikasa. Marco saw Jean open his mouth to break the silence, before deciding against it. He didn’t blame him, what were you supposed to say when you find out someone you’ve trained with for two years can apparently turn into a 15m tall titan.

When the small group of cadets landed behind the wall, the garrison quickly surrounded them; swords were drawn, and rifles pointed squarely at them. They were all ordered to step away from Eren, which all but Mikasa and Armin complied with. They had been slapped with a gag order and promptly escorted back to the reserves, leaving the trio from Shiganshina to face the garrison alone.

He had quietly split off from the stunned group, intending to honour his promise to Armin and finding the remains of his squad. As he walked Marco momentarily wondered if Armin was some kind of **c** lairvoyant, as his cryptic message seemed to come true before his very eyes.

Marco shook his head, he was too tired to deal with all this; People appearing from a titan’s nape, and blond psychics were well beyond his paygrade. He would focus on something that didn’t make his brain hurt.

“Right…” he murmured to himself, “where’s that infirmary?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The award for this chapter's MVP goes to.... CONNIE!  
> For saving us all from my terrible, emotional bonding writing, thank you buzzcut man.
> 
> One internet cookie to the person who spots the exact point I said "fuck this" and decided to hurry the story along a bit.
> 
> Also when I've been re-watching and re-reading as research for this fic, I realised how many things I missed, for example the Titan the killed Mina (called the Peering titan on the wiki btw) was one of the titans in the Trost armoury. And in this fic Armin killed it, therefore it isn't in the armoury... Cause and Effect, pretty neat huh?


	11. Chaos Theory Pt 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was planning on uploading this chapter on Saturday, but I spent most of this weekend either drunk, hungover or with family.
> 
> I lost a bit of steam on this chapter (after all these three parts add up to 15000 words, which for me is a lot of words!) and have been looking forward to moving on a bit to a few more 'original' ideas/changes.
> 
> Sorry about the brief delay with this final chapter in the battle of Trost 'arc'.

He suppresses a grimace as he salutes, clenching his wounded hand into a fist and slamming it over his heart. He screams out their innocence and loyalty to humanity in front of dozens of terrified soldiers. He stands, unwaveringly, in front of drawn swords and pointed rifles as he yells to the garrison captain, imploring him to understand that with Eren’s powers they could re-take Trost.

He knows it is pointless, he knows his words will not convince or placate the dogmatic officer, but he has to play for time. Eren had already saved them from the first cannonball, the slowly disintegrating skeletal titan stands testament to that, but if another was fired Eren might not be able to stop it.

Mikasa stands a few metres behind him, like a silent sentinel, midway between Eren and himself. Her face is a picture of fury, and she brandishes her swords at the surrounding troops, as she rests her tongue between her teeth, ready to bite down and transform at a moment’s notice.

 

Some of the lesser officers look towards their bearded captain, suggesting that his plan is worth considering. They can see the strategic value of a ‘friendly’ titan as part of the counter-attack.

But it’s no use. The man loses his composure, ordering them to remain silent. He has already decided they are threats and traitors and won’t listen to anyone else.

Armin stares coldly at the nervous captain, already expecting this tremendous display of obstinate refusal to see logic and reason. He can only hope he’s brought enough time.

The captain brings up his arm, hand pointing towards to sky, ready to signal the cannon to fire. Mikasa is a split second away from biting down and Eren’s hand is drifting toward his mouth when someone grabs the captain’s arm and preventing it from going down.

 

“That’s enough. You should really do something about your nervous disposition, Captain Woerman.”

Despite the man’s advanced age and genial smile, he radiates an aura of authority. Arms now resting behind his back, the bald man calmly walks forwards, pushing aside the stammering Woerman.

“Can you not see this cadet’s heartfelt salute? I’ve only just arrived but have been informed of the situation along the way. Go gather our reinforcements Captain, I think we can at least do these young cadets the favour of hearing them out.” decreed Commander Pixis.

 

* * *

 

 

Dot Pixis was by all accounts an eccentric man; his stance that being eaten by a titan wouldn’t be so bad if ‘it was a sexy lady one’ and his predilection for hard liquor, regardless of the situation, definitely made him stand out compared to most other members of the armed forces.

But he was not a man to be trifled with; beneath the friendly, if slightly odd, exterior he was an effective leader able to command and inspire his subordinates with ease. He could also be just as ruthless as Commander Erwin if circumstances required it. After all he had been prepared to let Erwin be executed by the government for his scheme to overthrow them, had they not shown their true colours during the fake report of Wall Rose being breached.

He was the highest-ranking commander of the southern territories and had authority over 65% of the entire garrison division, nearly 20000 men and women. Subsequently making him one of the most powerful, and therefore dangerous men within the walls.

 

Pixis stood at the very edge of Wall Rose, overlooking Trost. He took a swig from his flask, seemingly oblivious to the horde of ravenous titans scratching at the wall 50m below him.

Eren had just finished telling the Commander about the basement in Shiganshina and what his father had told him.

“So… Visiting this cellar should clear everything up?”

“Yes, sir. Well, at least I think so.”

“For the moment there is no way to validate your claims, but for now I will catalogue them in my head. With that said, I can usually tell the difference between unctuous and the sincere, which is why I personally guarantee your safety.”

Eren let out a small sigh of relief at that, while Armin and Mikasa remained quiet. They knew that regardless of what Pixis said, Eren would still be arrested by the MPs after this and have to go through that farce of a trial again.

“You’re Cadet Armin Arlert. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.” He replies with a quick salute.

“You mentioned a plan to use Cadet Yeager’s ‘titan ability’ to retake Trost. Do you believe that could work, or were you grasping at straws to try and save your hides?”

“The former, sir. I was going to suggest that Eren use his ability to lift that giant boulder and use it to seal the breach.”

Pixis looks back over the city, assessing the merits and drawbacks of his plan. After a moment of deliberation, he turns back and crouches in front of Eren.

“What do you say, Cadet Yeager? Can you seal that hole, son?”

“I…I don’t know, it might be possible, but I don’t understand my power any more than you do, Sir.”

“Ah, yes. Of course, my apologies. I asked you the wrong question.” The commander’s friendly smile faded, and was replaced with a heavy stare, “Are you willing to, Cadet Yeager, or not?”

 

Eren was quiet as he looked behind him at the land behind Wall Rose. They can barely produce enough food to sustain themselves as it is, and if Rose falls and they have to fall back to Sina… The consequences are too dire to imagine.

“I’ll do it. I’ll do it! I don’t know if I can seal that hole, but I’ll do it.”

The smile returned, “Well said, Cadet Yeager. Now stand up lad, there’s a battle to be won.”

 

 

 

With Commander Pixis’s approval, the planning could begin in earnest. He had summoned up his senior officers, minus Captain Woerman, and set off across the wall with Eren in tow.

Armin and Mikasa watched them go, knowing Pixis wanted to talk to Eren privately before speaking to his troops. It was a sadly familiar sight, and one that had occurred countless times before; Eren leaving them, willingly or not, while they stayed behind. Even when they tried to change the future, they couldn’t change that.

A forced, but polite cough from behind brought them out of their melancholy. There stood two of Pixis’s aides and senior officers; a tall short-haired man, with a broad chest and stern face and the other was a shorter brunette woman, known to be Pixis’s most trusted advisor and his right-hand woman.

“The commander said one of you had a plan to retake Trost?” The woman said with a soothing voice, expecting the two cadets to be nervous about this whole situation and wanting to put them at ease. It wasn’t needed but it was considerate of her to do so.

Both saluted and Armin stepped forward, “Yes Ma’am, I do. Is there a map we can look at?”

With a slight grunt, the man unrolled a map of Trost and laid it out on one of the wall’s crenulations.

“Ok, for this plan to work we need to execute two simultaneous operations. The first is to gather as many soldiers and cannons as possible in this corner of the city.” He pointed to the inner right-hand side of Trost, furthest away from the boulder. “Titans are naturally drawn toward large groups of people, so if we station enough people on top of the wall the titans will gravitate towards this area, clearing the city.”

“While this is going on Eren will travel around the top of the wall and then move into the city, discreetly reaching the boulder, then he will transform and carry it toward the outer gate. However, while Eren is moving it, he will be exceptional vulnerable and will need to be protected at all cost. For that reason, I recommend assigning a squad to go with Eren and defending him once in Trost. And for the record, both Mikasa and I request assignment to this squad, as Eren’s closest friends we may be the best people to help him if something goes wrong.”

The two garrison officers shared a look of surprise, they hadn’t expected two cadets requesting to be sent back into Trost.

“Once the breach has been sealed, we can finish off any remaining Titans with the cannons. There is no reason for more pointless deaths today, so no-one, except the infiltration team, should be sent back into the city until it’s secured.”

 

The stern man looked over Armin as if seeing him for the first time. “Hmm, not bad kid. I can’t see any massive flaws in that plan, the only issue I have with it is that so much relies on your friend’s _ability_ to lift that boulder, if he can’t then we’re dead in the water.” He looks to his colleague, silently asking for her opinion.

“I agree, there’s a lot riding on his ability, but we’re working against the clock, titans are still lumbering in even as we speak. It’s a risk but it’s still the best chance we’ve got. As for your ‘request’, that will be for the commander and the squad leader to decide.”

“It’ll take time to reposition all the cannons and bring up the supplies, so I’d advise the two of you to rest for a moment, you’ve been fighting since the beginning and you might not get another chance until Trost is secured. In the meantime, we’ll sort out the finer details whilst the commander mobilises the reserves.”

“Yes Ma’am.” they both reply in unison, giving a final salute.

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes it can be difficult to comprehend the sheer scale of wall Rose; 20m thick, 50m high and runs continuously for 1193km. If you kept a steady pace and didn’t stop to rest or sleep, it would take nearly 13 days to walk around the entirety of the wall. 

Even just running along the Trost district section of the wall gave Armin a healthy respect for its size as he sprinted alongside Mikasa and Eren. He was a soldier, so he was more physically fit than most civilians, but after fighting for several hours with limited rest so his body was starting to tire. He was certainly glad for that brief period of rest they had been given before this operation, it was probably the only reason he was even able to keep up.

 

In the end it hadn’t been too difficult to convince the squad leader that they should join the mission. The man, Ian Dietrich, had been Mikasa’s squad leader in the rear-guard and knew of her combat prowess, so when Mikasa vouched for him he readily accepted Armin into his squad.

 

As they approached the infiltration spot, he glanced across the city towards the massing Titans in the far corner. They were trying to reach the brave, or insane, soldiers who were abseiling the wall, but none were tall enough to get close. The city had mostly been emptied, with the majority of titans making their way towards the amassed human defenders on top the wall.

So far everything was going according to plan like he knew it would, but he was careful not to feel too confident. The difficult part of the plan was still to come.

And speaking of difficult…

 

“I can’t believe you both volunteered for this! Seriously, why would you both do something so stupid?” Eren fumed in anger as he ran.

At first, Eren had been surprised to see the two of them in the squad, but that had quickly turned to anger when one of the soldiers told him they had volunteered to keep him safe. He had been giving them the silent treatment for most of the run, so it had taken Armin by surprise when he blurted his question out.

“We want to keep you save, Eren. And we can do that best when we’re together.” Mikasa calmly replied, unfazed by Eren’s bad mood. 

That only seemed to anger him more. “Get it through your heads, I’m not your responsibility. You’re not my parents, so stop treating me like a child!”

“Yeager now isn’t the time to be playing house.” Rico Brzenska didn’t attempt to hide the annoyance in her voice as she cut past Eren. The silver-haired elite hadn’t been subtle about her negative opinion of Eren, and his complaining wasn’t doing anything to improve it.

“Make no mistake, more than a few of our comrades are going to die today trying to pull this off. I’m talking friends, captains, lieutenants, squaddies. Yes, they are soldiers and they are prepared to die for humanity, but remember they are not just the faceless bodies. They have names, dreams, hopes and families. Their blood will be on your hands, so at least do them the honour of acting like a soldier rather than a whinging child.”

“That’s enough, all of you.” Ian shouted over his shoulder, “We’re nearly in range of the giant boulder. Rico, fire the signal flare. The rest of you prepare to jump.”

 

 

Eren gritted his teeth as he jumped off the wall. They didn’t understand. He was a soldier, he had trained long and hard so he could kill titans and avenge his mother, yet they kept trying to hold him back. Why were they so willing to fight, yet wouldn’t let him do the same?

This was his dream, his goal. He had been the one who wanted to join the military, and they had followed him. They hadn’t tried to stop him then, so why are they trying to do it now?!

 _‘No.’_ he thought to himself as he flew around spires and under skywalks, scrapping along the cobbled road. _‘I’m going to do this. I will move that boulder, I will save this city, and I will Kill. All. Titans!’_

He bites down, hard, on his hand, splitting skin and drawing blood.

 

A ball of energy appears in front of the boulder, emitting a deafening piercing sound as it whips up a cloud of dust and debris. Eren was gone, and in his place stood a new creature, one of immense strength and power, one that would soon come to symbolise hope for humanity within the walls.

The Attack Titan.

 

* * *

 

 

Mikasa landed behind Eren a few moments later, as the rest of the squad touched down on the numerous buildings surrounding the boulder. She was fully prepared for Eren to lose control and throw a punch at her and had stationed herself behind him again for that very reason.

Armin had tried to talk her out of it, but if Eren killed a soldier, or even seriously injured one, he would either be immediately killed by the others or handed over to the MPs for execution once Trost had been secured. She was the strongest soldier here and with her healing ability she wasn’t worried about being injured, it was better if Eren tried to attack her rather than successfully attacking someone else.  

She tensed slightly as Eren’s turned, staring at her with those piercing emerald eyes. She saw the muscles in his arm tightening as he swung at her. She leapt to the side and rolled out of the way as his fist came crashing into the roof, chunks of masonry and tiles were sent flying in every direction, as the other soldiers cried out in surprised horror.

A piece of tile caught her across the face, slicing a deep cut from her cheek to just pass the corner of her right eye. She gave out a hiss of pain and put her hand over it, hiding it from anyone who might see. She could already feel the wisps of steam rising off it as the flesh quickly stitched itself back together. She didn’t have time to fully contemplate the usefulness of her titan healing factor, as Eren reared back for another strike.

She flipped over the second punch, which shattered a nearby chimney, and fired her grapples directly into Eren’s ear and reeled herself in, landed on his face. She was slightly surprised to find that Armin had the same idea.

“Eren! Listen to me, I know you’re in there.” Armin looked alarmed, he hadn’t seen Eren lose control first time and had been shocked by the suddenness of it.

“ACKERMAN! ARLERT! STAND DOWN! NOW! GETAWAY FROM HIM, THAT’S AN ORDER!” Captain Ian screamed at them from the roof.

“This isn’t you Eren. You need to fight, you need to take control!”

Mikasa could see Eren’s healing hand clench into a fist, ready to strike. She got ready to grab Armin and dive off if Eren tried to punch them again.

“Remember when we were kids? All we wanted to do was see the outside world; fields of ice and sand, mountains the pierced the heavens, vast jungles and the ocean, that vast salt-filled ocean. We promised each other we would see it together, don’t you remember Eren, all three of us promised.”

Eren’s arm seemed to freeze as his clenched hand shook. It looked like it was trying to move but was being held down by some unseen force. Mikasa dared to look away from the potential lethal fist into those bright green eyes. Something seemed to shift in those swirling pools of green.

“I don’t know if you gave up on that dream Eren, I don’t know if we would ever achieve it, but I know one thing. That we will never give up on you Eren, that even in the darkest times we won’t abandon you, not again. So please Eren… just come back to us.” The last line came out as a whisper, something only the three of them could hear.

 

The yelling of the other troops faded out as they both stared into the titanic eyes of their friend, silently hoping he could hear them.

Slowly, as if it were moving through quicksand, the frozen arm lowered itself and comes to rest at Eren’s side.

Mikasa let out a small sigh of relief, as the predatory look in his eyes disappears and is replaced by something more conscious and controlled. The small rumbling growl from Eren’s throat was taken as a mixture of remorse and reassurance that he was now in control.

“It’s alright Eren, I’m fine, I promise. But this isn’t over yet, we still have a mission to complete.” She spoke softly to reassure him, not wanting him to be distracted for what comes next.

Eren growls again as he nods his giant head. The two of them jumped off his face, landing in front of the dumbfounded elite garrison squad, as Eren turns and ever so slowly lifts the boulder.

 

There was an ancient tale that many of them had heard once; about a great titan that held up the world, carrying it on its giant shoulders. None believed it of course, it didn’t make any sense; no titan was big enough to hold up the world and before today titans had only ever hunted Humanity, not helped it by literally holding up their world.

Yet as the stunned soldiers watched Eren picking up that enormous rock, steaming pouring from his body as his muscles bulged and tightened under the weight, deep down many started to wonder if maybe there was some truth in that old tale. To them, he looked just like that titan of legend.

  

* * *

 

 

The entire world seemed to shake with every step he took. Glass shattered and the cobbled stones were crushed to dust beneath him as he walks. It takes everything he had to keep the boulder steady.

One wrong move, one misplaced step and he will fall and be crushed like an insect under a boot.

Everything comes through to him as a strange haze; he’s not fully sure where he is or even what he is. All he knows is that he has to keep moving forward, that he has to reach the breach.

Left foot.

 

He sees small things darting back and forth in front of him, killing the bigger things. He watches as the bigger ones fall, steaming and dissolving. He watches as some of the little things are grabbed, eaten or smacked out of the air in a puff of red mist. That makes him angry.

Right foot.

 

There’s a flash of yellow, as another little thing flies past him. This one slices the neck of a creature that had been charging towards him, before moving on to the next. He doesn’t know why, but the yellow thing seems oddly familiar to him.

Left foot.

 

He feels like he’s about to buckle under the weight. The size of the boulder is causing his muscles to tear and his bones to crack and snap under the pressure. But he keeps moving.

Right foot.

 

He can see the hole, it is right in front of him now. He hears someone yelling but can’t make out what’s being said. But it doesn’t matter, he knows what he has to do.

With one final defiant roar, he lifts the boulder of his back and slams it into the breach with all the strength he can muster. It cracks the surrounding stone, but he pushes harder, determined to wedge it in the hole so it can never be opened again.

 

When the beams of sunlight passing through the hole can no longer be seen he slumps to his knees; his body was a steaming ruin of torn muscle and shredded skin and his vision was starting to spin and fade, but he had done it. He had sealed the hole.

 

Eren had already passed out when a yellow flare was fired into the sky. The signal that their first-ever victory over the titans had been secured, that humanity had reclaimed Trost. The cheering of the jubilant soldiers almost drowned out the booms of the cannons which started to blast the massed Titan horde apart.

Some fell to their knees crying in relief or happiness, some pulled friends, lovers or even complete strangers into bone-crushing hugs but most just yelled and cheered to the heavens until their throats were dry and raw.

 

Eren experienced none of that as his semi-comatose body was being pulled out of his ruined titan. The amount of hot steam pouring from the nape should have made it incredibly painful for Armin to pull him out, and as he pulled strips of connector flesh his unbandaged hand started to blister and burn. But compared to what he went through fighting Bertholdt this wasn’t too bad.

Mikasa lands next to them and helps him by careful cutting through the meat encasing Erens arms.

“Get him up the wall Armin. I’ll deal with those two.” She pointed at the two titans stumbling towards them, hoping to catch them from behind.

 

Before either of them could move, one of the titans fell down dead. Its nape split open like an overripe orange. The other soon followed, cut down by a flash of green and black. It fell on the body of the other with a sickening crunch.

A man landed on top of the pile, looking over the city. The titan blood on his blades slowly evaporating away, as his green cape, emblazoned with the wings of freedom, fluttered gently in the wind. The man was short, only standing a few inches taller than Armin, but as he stood on the corpses of two giant titans he looked like some legendary God of War.

“Alright, Kiddos. This is the part when you explain to me exactly what I am looking at.” Demanded Captain Levi; commander of the special operation squad and humanity's strongest soldier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so use to mysterious Eren and Hobo Eren I forgot how irritating and moany Eren was during the beginning of the story. I hope I managed to portray that in this chapter (I don't dislike young Eren, I know he cares about his friends but I think at this stage revenge and anger clouds his mind.)
> 
> Quite a lot of dialog in this chapter was taken either straight from/edited bits from the anime. Hope you don't mind too much, but many of the lines worked far better than anything I could come up with.
> 
>  
> 
> Only final point, I have some exams coming up next month so I will be focusing mainly on those, but I will definitely try to maintain my update schedule.  
> Just don't be alarmed if I dont post something for a while.


	12. Tribulations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may be being a bit presumptuous (seeing as it hasn't reached it at the time of posting) but I cant believe this story has very nearly 1000 hits. Whether it's just 1 person who's read it 1000 times or a 1000 people reading it once, I want to say a big thank you. It's hard to believe my chicken scratching's have been read 1000 times.
> 
> As a thank you let me present the next chapter!

With Trost finally secured and the eradication of the Titans trapped inside firmly underway the focus of the military was once again directed towards Eren.

By now a contingent of MPs had arrived and was already making threats and demands for Eren’s immediate execution. Fortunately, Commander Pixis intervened and informed the MPs that Eren would not be executed like some common criminal. He was the only reason humanity had retaken Trost and as such he at least deserved a fair trial to determine his fate.

After some back-and-forthing the MPs relented; and along with several scouts and garrison troops ‘arrested’ Eren’s still unconscious body and bundled him off to a prison cell with the Hermina district within Wall Sina to await his trial.

Both Armin and Mikasa had been told by the MPs to await their court summons, as they were now considered key eyewitnesses of this ‘crime’. Armin had been concentrating too hard on not rolling his eyes at the arrogant MP, that he had missed Commander Erwin having a private discussion with Pixis.

When they were eventually dismissed by the MP, Armin also missed the Commander’s eyes flickering towards him then back to the smiling Pixis, with a pensive look on his face.

 

 

The sun was starting to set when the cannons finally stopped firing. It had taken several hours of constant bombardment to thin down the horde enough to allow the scouts to finish off the stragglers, but they had done it. Trost was now fully secured and titan free.

An extensive clean-up operation would be required before human habitation could resume; bodies and severed limbs needed to be identified and buried, fire-ravaged ruins needed to be pulled down and homes needed to be rebuilt. But for now, with the last beams of light slowly sinking behind wall Rose, it was decided that the battle-weary soldiers needed to rest and recuperate before anything such an operation could begin.

With the influx of troops around Trost the local barracks didn’t have the capacity to houses everyone, so the military temporarily requisitioned hundreds of abandoned homes in and around the district so their exhausted forces would have somewhere to sleep for the night.

 

The 104th training corp (those that still lived or weren’t stuck in a hospital bed anyway) had been assigned to a block of houses just inside Wall Rose, just in sight of the Trost outer gate.

There were so many missing faces, people he had once again befriended and once again lost; Nack, Franz, Tom, Ruth, and dozens more. Killed in a battle that should have never happened.

Not even the sight of additional survivors made him feel any better; Mina’s petite body shook like a leaf in the wind, only Thomas’s supportive arm around her shoulder stopped her from collapsing, and Hannah…

Hannah just looked broken; her posture was slouched, and the light had completely left her eyes; leaving them dull, hollow and unfocused. Armin hadn’t heard her make a single sound in hours; her shallow breathing was the only sign she was still alive. The bowl of broth in front of her was untouched and long since gone cold, he doubted she even knew it was in front of her.

He wondered if saving someone really counts if they are left broken and dead inside?

 

No longer able to take the pain of seeing all his comrades traumatised faces, he left his own barely touched meal and retreated to his room.

 

It was modestly sized, larger than his old bedroom when he lived with his Grandpa, with two beds push against the side walls. From the general décor, and the occasional toys lying around he guessed this room belonged to two girls; siblings or twins, likely no older than 12 years old. He hoped they made it out and were safe.

 

The adrenaline which had been constantly coursing through his body had started to fade, and the tiredness and pain it had been pushing away came flooding back. He let out a pained groan as he gingerly sat on one of the beds.

Slowly he untied his combat boots and slipped them off, before taking his cadet jacket off and dropping it on the floor. He looked down and grimaced, an entire day of intense combat had taken its toll on his once white undershirt.

Blood, tears, soot and sweat had left it filthy and stained. He may not be as obsessed with cleanliness like Captain Levi, but he decided this shirt was definitely beyond saving and would be binned as soon as possible.

He finally got a good look at his arms and frowned. His right hand and forearm were still wrapped in Mikasa’s scarf, but the rest of his exposed skin was covered in scrapes, cuts and bruises. In his four years as the Colossal titan he had nearly forgotten the constant small injuries they normally acquired in the field. He was almost expecting to see wisps of steam seeping from the cuts as they slowly stitched together.

He partially rolled up the soiled undershirt, to check if his torso was as bad as his arms. All he found was more cuts and more bruises, nothing too deep or serious but painful none the less. The occasional sharp stabs of pain when he breathed was a good indication he had bruised ribs, which could take weeks to fully heal.

He was very lucky he wasn’t injured more seriously; he had been thrown around in a back alley by a titan. The fact nothing was broken was nothing short of miraculous.

Armin was tired and in pain so all he wanted to do was lay down, close his eyes and fall asleep. So, it really shouldn’t have surprised him when someone knocked on the door, because apparently, his luck is just that bad. He let out a long sigh and told whoever it was to come in.

The door was pushed open and two people quickly slipped inside.

Armin quickly rolled down his undershirt as Historia and Mikasa entered the room; not out of privacy or embarrassment (he had seen all his comrades in various stages of undress before, Afterall privacy was a luxury the military didn’t provide) but simply because he didn’t want more fuss about his injuries.

Mikasa was holding a small roll of medical bandages and a pair of scissors, “I found these in the bathroom,” she simply stated as she sat next to him. “Pass me your hand.”

He didn’t argue as he held out his scarf covered arm and let Mikasa diligently go about rebandaging his wounded hand.

 

If Historia noticed the scarf, she didn’t mention anything as she graceful sat on the spare bed, facing the duo.

“How did this happen, Armin? I thought we had more time.” The secret royal looked drained and slightly disgruntled as she wrung her hands together.

He shook his head, “I don’t know Historia, I just don’t know. We must have done something to make Shadis take us to Trost.”

“How can we change things if all it does it cause more problems?” she sounded frustrated, and Armin didn’t blame her. What use were memories of the future, if they couldn’t act on them?

“That might just have to be a risk we are willing to take. We change what we can to prepare ourselves for the future and perform damage control for things we can’t. It’s not a great plan but it’s better than doing nothing.”

Historia uttered a curse under her breath, surprising Armin. He had never heard the seemingly angelic blond swear before.

“I really thought this would be easier… So, what do we do now?” she muttered.

“Our immediate concern has to be the trial. Even if everything goes the same as before, which we can’t assume, and Eren is handed over to the survey corp we might be stuck as cadets if we are not permitted an early graduation. While that might give us some openings to deal with the traitors, it would also give them more chances to target Eren without risking their identities being revealed.”

“So that’s our best worst-case scenario. Eren in the scouts and us stuck as cadets? Can we work with that?”

 

“We will make it work.” Having neatly rebound Armin’s hand with a proper bandage, Mikasa had finally entered the conversation. “The biggest threats to Eren is his own recklessness and the traitors. We can’t do much about the first, but we can deal with Reiner and Bertholdt. So that what we should focus on, regardless of whether we graduate early or not.”

She may have been blunter than Armin had been expecting but she was right. They couldn’t be constantly babysitting Eren and dealing with the hidden threats. If that situation occurs, they will have to trust the scouts to keep Eren safe for them. He gave Mikasa a small smile and nodded his head in agreement. “We have to prioritise, and the long-term safety of Paradise must be paramount.”

 

Historia looked back and forth at the pair, curiosity peaked by their words. “You two seem… _different_. Something has changed between you two.”

The duo looked at each other with confusion, wondering what Historia was getting at. When they looked back at the blond girl Mikasa asked her “What do you mean?”

“Well the last time I saw you two, before all _this_ happened, was before you went to Marley to retrieve Eren and Zeke. I know it’s been a while since then but it’s still quite noticeable.”

She ran a hand through her long hair, debating how to politely word what came next.

“Well, I don’t mean to be rude Mikasa, but you use to be quite… _attached_ to Eren. In fact, both of you were, so it’s surprising that you’re not focusing on directly defending him. What changed?”

 

The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees, and a stony silence followed. It left Historia with a distinct feeling she had crossed some unseen line and broken a taboo.

“Historia don’t, it doesn’t…” Armin started to speak, wanting to avoiding dredging up such painful memories.

“Eren killed children.” Mikasa’s voice was cold and hard. “During the festival in Liberio, he transformed in the basement of a building before diving into the stands holding the Marleyan army officers which sent rubble flying into the crowds. Crowds filled with helpless civilians from all over the world; men, women, children…” She looked away, the memories of those countless bodies, crushed by wreckage or by the stampede of panicking people desperate to flee, were dragged to the forefront of her mind.

She swallowed thickly before facing back towards the shocked Historia, “When we got back, Eren was arrested by the government and separated from us. We pleaded with General Zackery to let us talk to him, to try and find out why he did what he did, but he refused. He was assassinated less than a minute later with a bomb, by a faction known as the ‘Yeagerists’ who believed Eren was the true leader of the Eldian race and wanted him released immediately.”

“Leadership fell to Commander Pixis, but before we could even figure out what to do next, we found out that Eren had escaped from prison. We travelled to Nicolo’s restaurant to question some of the Marleyans and Volunteers that worked there, to try and figure out the Yeagerists intensions. When we arrived, we discovered the two kids who snuck aboard our airship and shot Sasha and uncovered the Yeagerists plan. They had spiked bottles of expensive wine with Zeke’s spinal fluid and given it to most of our senior officers, who could now be turned into mindless titans whenever Zeke wanted.”

“Before we could even fully comprehend the sheer scale of this disaster, Eren turned up…” Mikasa's hand clenched into a fist, as her voice tapered out. Without thinking Armin placed his hand over hers, looking at her with concern. Slowly, Mikasa relented and interlaced her fingers with his and squeezed his hand.

“He told us to sit down and keep our hands on the table. We asked him what he was thinking; why he attacked Marley on his own, why he broke out of prison and if he was being manipulated by Zeke and Yelena. He denied it and turned on Armin, telling him that he was being controlled by the Colossal Titan and that he was the one working for the enemy. Then he told us about my family bloodline and its history, that we were ‘experiments’ created in order to protect the Kings and Queens of the old Eldian empire.”

“He told me the only reason I cared for him was because of this. That Ackerman’s imprint on certain people who we class as ‘hosts’, and that forces us to defend them. I told him that wasn’t true, that I cared about him because he saved me, not because of some ‘ _bond’_ I didn’t have a choice about. But then he told us about the headaches I experienced, that they were side effects of me subconsciously fighting this bond.”

Armin took over, seeing the pain in her eyes intensifying with every word she spoke. “Because of this bond, Eren claimed Mikasa was no better than cattle, that she was a slave with no free will and finally he told us he always hated her because of it. I was so angry at him, I couldn’t believe he said such horrible things, I just saw red and punched him across the face.”

He skipped over the bit about Mikasa reactively slamming him down on the table, he didn’t hold it against her, and it didn’t need to be brought up. “But I was never a fighter, so it wasn’t long before Eren got the better of me and we were arrested by his followers. We were taken to a prison cell in Shiganshina and the next thing we know we woke up back in bootcamp.”

Historia’s mouth was agape, and she looked utterly horrified. “My Gods… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

“No, you wouldn’t. It’s not something we like to talk about for obvious reasons.”

 

Historia was busy trying to digest everything she had just heard. She may have been the Queen but living on her farm had kept her isolated from the rest of the walls. She had heard that Liberio had been attacked and that Eren had been jailed when they returned but that was it. Everything else was news to her, and it horrified her.

The last few times she had seen Eren before her return, he had been kind and considerate. He stood up for her against the rest of the government and Hizuru when they wanted her to inherit the Beast Titan. He had refused Zeke’s plan outright.

That was the Eren she knew, the Eren she had fought alongside with in the scouts. The man who would stand up for his friends no matter what.

Yet now she had been told that Eren had brutalised his closest friends, slaughtered civilians and led a coup using tainted wine and bombs. It made her feel physically sick.

 

“Wuh…” she tried to speak but found she couldn’t get the words out.

Armin looked miserable when he spoke, “Why?”. She nodded, not trusting her own voice.

“We don’t know, it might have something to do with him holding multiple titans for so long. If what he told us about the influence of previous shifters was true, then for nearly nine years Eren had a constant war in his head between the Founding titan, and the memories of the Karl Fritz who wanted all Eldians to be exterminated and the Attack titan who wanted to free them.”

“And between that endless mental battle, Zeke’s manipulations and the stress of our situation, Eren may have lost control of his own mind.” Historia breathed out, noticeably paling as she realised what Armin was suggesting.

“There must be some way to stop that?!” she practically shouted out.

“That’s what we are doing now. By dealing with the traitors in the shadows and seizing their powers we can relieve the pressure on Eren; it will give us a position of strength when negotiating with other powers and, between the three of us, we won’t go into the future blind and naïve. We won’t let Hizuru take advantage of us, and we won’t let Marley build up a global coalition against us.”

 

Historia abruptly stood up, more determined than ever before. “I’m going to find Ymir. I’m going to tell her that if we graduate that I’m joining the scouts, and I promise you I will convince her to join us. Together, all of us, we will save him.”

“Thank you, Historia.” Mikasa gave her a tiny smile, offsetting the pained look in her eyes at reliving such raw memories. Historia noticed she was still lightly squeezing Armin’s hand as he rubbed his thumb in a small circle on the back of her hand. She smiled back at the girl before pulling the two of them into a quick hug; the two of them were so close, and she hoped that one day Ymir and her can be like that.

She had realised that in her last life she had taken Ymir for granted, not knowing what the tall freckled girl had meant to her until she was gone. She wouldn’t make the same mistake this time, she openly reciprocated Ymir feelings rather than brushing them off with a small blush. She knew some people would never approve of their relationship; the church of the walls would hate it, they preached enough about it being ‘unnatural and sinful’, but most people wouldn’t care.

With resources being stretched so thin after the fall of Wall Maria, they weren’t going to complain if people like her and Ymir were together. After all they couldn’t have children, which meant there would be fewer people needing those limited supplies.

But ultimately, she didn’t care what others thought. She loved Ymir and nothing on this Earth would change that, not the titans, nor the church.

 

Armin watched as Historia left the room, leaving the two of them in comfortable silence. Subconsciously he continued to rub small circles on Mikasa's hand as they both thought about that day once more. It had been difficult and unpleasant but deep down he was glad they had told Historia; it had been a dark cloud hanging over them that seeped deep into their minds. He didn’t know if talking about it would stop the frequent nightmares they both had about that conversation, but it made him feel a tiny bit better.

“I never thanked you for that.” Mikasa uttered from his side, still staring at where Historia had been sitting.

“What for?” he asked, turning his head to look at her.

“For defending me.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that. It’s the least I could have done for you.”

She moved her spare hand to Armin’s face and tucked a strand of blond hair behind his ear. “I like your long hair. Do you think you’ll keep it?”

He smiled, glad to move on to a simpler conversation. “I think so. It makes me look younger, but it does keep my ears warm.”

Mikasa let out a quick laugh and Armin felt his heart soar. She had such a beautiful laugh and it was so rare to hear it. He hoped someday she would laugh more often, and he hoped he would be there to hear it.

 

She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder leaving them once again in companionable silence. There was no way of telling how long they stayed like that; the sun had long since set and only the slowly melting candle was the way they had to tell. As the candlelight started to flicker and fade, footsteps could be heard outside the door as the other cadets started going to bed.

Mikasa pulled her head off his shoulder looking towards the door separating them from the others. “I should go, we’ll have to be up early tomorrow and both of us need sleep.”

For a brief, mad moment Armin wanted her to stay. This room had a spare bed and they had slept in the same room many times before both as children and during their time in the military, but this was different. Those times had all been due to necessity; either for strength in numbers when they lived on the landfill after Wall Maria fell or during an operation where space was limited.

None of those issues were present now so there was no reason for Mikasa to stay; she had her own room and bed to sleep in, and neither of them was in any immediate danger.

But he still didn’t want to see her go.

 

Reluctantly he let go of Mikasa’s hand so she could stand. He tried to ignore the sudden feeling of loss at the separation. “Oh, yeah, of course. Goodnight Mikasa.”

“Goodnight Armin.” She said as she slowly left the room.

When the door closed and he could no longer hear her retreating footsteps, he groaned and rested his head in his bandaged hand.

_‘What is happening to me?’_

 

* * *

 

Several Hours Later 

 

Mikasa laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She could hear muffled sobbing and whimpering from the other cadets passing through the thin walls of her room. It was to be expected, many had lost friends or loved ones. They had seen them torn limb from limb, crushed like grapes in a titan’s hand or simply swallowed whole, as they screamed for help.

Even she had been badly shaken after her first battle with the titans, she had woken up in the middle of the night, sweating and heaving, and actively fighting back tears. Now she would have to listen to the other cadets go through the same horrible nightmares again.

There was a sudden scream, someone had cried out a name, their voice thick with grief. It wasn’t the first name yelled out this night, and it wouldn’t be the last.

 

She rolled onto her side and tugged up her scarf, so it covered her mouth. She had quickly washed it after leaving Armin’s room to clean off the dried blood, but it still smelt like him. It was… soothing.

She ignored the sounds of fear and grief and instead focused on that smell. It, like the boy himself, was comforting; it brought a semblance of tranquillity to her troubled mind. As the noise started to fade into the background and was pushed out of her mind, she allowed her eyelids to droop and slowly drifted off to sleep.

  

For the first time in as long as she could remember she had peaceful dreams. Dreams of a place with no war and no titans. A place where enemies didn’t surround them on every front, and they could live free, where families could be rebuilt and raised anew.

A place which for the first time was filled with blond and blue, rather than brown and green.

 

**(Artwork made by the wonderful Taku-mune. Please check out their Tumblr and support all the amazing work they do!)**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing this chapter was a pain, took a lot longer than I expected. It was suppose to be only a small bit before the trial but I ended up writing so much more than I expected so I made it is own chapter.
> 
> Now a bit of bad news for ya'll. This will likely be the last chapter for a good few weeks, I haven't been revising as much as I want to so I need to focus on that.  
> But I promise that once my exams are done, I will be back with a vengeance. Mwhahaha *cough cough*


	13. And Trials

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE MOTHER-TRUCKERS!
> 
> Me: "Revision is going alright, lets do a little bit of writing to stay in practice and there will be less to write after the exams."
> 
> Also me: Writes 8400 words in two days, including the trial, graduation and multiple character PoV's sections.

The Royal Court of Justice was one of the oldest and most grandiose buildings inside the three walls, second only to the royal palace itself. White marble statues of blindfolded angels holding up gold scales adorned its magnificent façade, the representation of the blind justice that all who enter such a place hope to find.

Countless rulings and defining moments had come from within the court’s elegant hallways, and ornate courtrooms; The signing of the charter of humanity, the formation of the survey corp as the third military arm, passing the emergency powers act after the fall of Wall Maria, and today it would decide the fate of Eren Yeager.

Already being called the trial of the decade by both the press and the people; the story about a boy who turned into a titan and saved Trost. It sounded like something you would hear from the mouth of a drunkard or a street wandering lunatic, yet the sheer numbers of soldiers now filling the capital added a great deal of validity to these bizarre stories.

Despite it supposedly being a closed military tribunal, the courtroom was already packed. Nobles, Army officers, rich merchants and senior religious figures filled the stands to bursting. All of them wanted to see this mysterious titan boy and find out what will happen to him.

 

“Silence in the court! The trial is about to begin.” The court crier boomed out, hushing the cacophony of voices from all the spectators. An eerie silence followed as hundreds of heads turned towards the courtroom doors, waiting for the accused to enter.

They didn’t have to wait long, as only moments later the doors were pushed open and a nervous-looking boy was pushed through them, flanked on both sides by armed MPs. Judgmental eyes followed the boy as he was forced to kneel before the bench and pinned in place by a large metal rod. 

“All rise for Premier Zachary, Supreme Commander of the armed forces.” The crier once again shouted, as the man in question stepped through a private door and sat down in the chair of judgement in front of the court.

Zachary rolled up his sleeves, as he glanced at a piece of paper, before turning to look at Eren.

 

“Alright, shall we begin? Your name is Eren Yeager, a trainee in the 104th southern cadet corp, is that correct?”

A bead of sweat passed across the pinned boy’s brow, a sign of his fraying nerves. “Yes.” His voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it carried across the silent room. “Yes, sir.”

“Given the extraordinary circumstance in which you find yourself here, and as an enlisted trainee in a time of war, military doctrine will apply, and this tribunal will be held as a court-martial. As such your right to trial by a jury of peers has been suspended and I, as overall commander of our armed forces, will have full decision-making authority in this case and whether you live or die. Do you have any objections?”

Eren broke eye contact with the Premier, looking down as the seriousness of this case truly dawned on him.

“No, sir.”

A small murmur broke out amongst the crowd, clearly some had been expecting some kind of protest or outburst from the titan boy at hearing of his suspended rights.

“Your astuteness is appreciated. Let us proceed; due to the nature and the situation surrounding your _ability_ , concealing your existing has proven impossible. And unless your existence and subsequent fate is publicly disclosed, we run the risk of widespread civil unrest. Therefore, it falls to me to decide which regiment should take custody of you: The Military Police or the Scouting Regiment.”

“We shall start with the case from the Military Police.”

“Thank you, Sir. My name is Nile Dawk, Commander of the Military Police, our recommendation is that after a thorough examination of his physiology, the subject should be disposed of immediately. We recognise that his ability played a part in the successful counter-attack at Trost, but as has already been stated, his mere existence has stirred unrest all across the walls. For the greater good of all of humanity, after we have extracted all the usual information he can provide, he should be made into a fallen warrior of mankind.”

“Unacceptable!” a tall man, wearing silk robes and adorned with golden chains had screeched out. He was pastor Nick, a high standing member of the Order of the Walls, a religious cult which has rapidly swelled both in its number of followers and political influence since Maria fell.

His fellow order members described him as being the most devout of them, unwavering in his belief in the holy walls. Others would label him as an unbending religious extremist, who cared more about the three walls than the people they protect.

 “This vile demon has defiled and infiltrated the mighty walls, he means to bring death and destruction upon all of us. He should be killed at once!” The man had gone red in the face as he ranted and raved.

 

“Pastor Nick. Please remain quiet or I will have you removed; this is a courtroom, not a church.” Zachary deadpanned at the man, somewhat irritated at the interruption. The priest grunted and growled but wisely silenced himself, Nick knew where the true power lied in this room, and it certainly wasn’t him.

“Good. Now, let us hear from the Scouting Regiment.”

“Yes, Sir. As Commander of the survey corp I, Erwin Smith, propose the following; Let Eren join our ranks as a full member of the scouts, where we shall utilise his ability to retake Wall Maria.”

More mumbling broke out at the incredibly brief proposal. This time however, Zachary joined them in expressing his confusion.

“Hmm? Is that it?”

“Yes, Sir. With his assistance, I am certain we can reclaim Wall Maria. Ergo, I believe it is clear what our top priority must be, any threat Eren proposes is vastly overshadowed by the benefits he can provide to humanity.”

“A bold claim Commander. Tell me, if Eren was assigned to the scouts, where would you launch this reclamation mission from. The report from Commander Pixis is clear that the outer Trost gate is completely sealed and is unlikely to ever be opened again.”

“We would launch the expedition from Calaneth District in the east. From there we would make our way to Shiganshina, a new route can be established as we proceed.”

 

This time it was a merchant who interrupted the court rather than a priest. “That’s ridiculous! Our time and money would be better spent sealing up all the gates. Those are the only parts of the wall the Colossal Titan can break! Let’s reinforce the blasted things and wash our hands of the entire affair!”

Another voice shouted across the court, “Shut your mouth, you spineless merchant dog! With a titan on our side we can return to Wall Maria!”

“Bah! Maria is lost, we can’t afford any more of your childish heroics. Let us save what we currently have, rather than wasting money and resources in the vain attempt to retake the wall.”

 

Several more people shot to their feet, preparing to add their own opinion into the mix, but a new voice beat them to the punch.

“You’ve got a big mouth, pig. Do you think the titans will stand idly by while we block up all the gates?” Humanity’s strongest, Captain Levi, looked at the merchant as if he was dirt on his shoes.

“And when you say, ‘we can’t afford’, do you speak for anyone other than your fat, wealthy friends? Do you pigs even realise that most of humanity outside of the capital and Sina are struggling to survive off what little land we have left?”

Although the small captain being halfway across the room, the merchant took a step back in fear. “I… I’m simply saying that filling the gates are the only guaranteed protection we’ve got!”

 

Despite the man technically supporting the MPs and Pastor Nick stance; the cultist could no longer stop himself from turning on the man.

“Hold your tongue, heretic! Are you suggesting that we lowly humans meddle with Wall Rose, a gift to us from the Gods themselves?” the dirty looks sent his way the by a group of Garrison soldiers went unseen. “The walls are a divine miracle, that transcends human understanding!”

 

Zachary slammed his hand against the wooden desk in front of him, cutting off the escalating argument between the two men. “Order! This is not the place for you to debate personal sentiments. Pastor Nick, I will not ask you again, remain silent or I will have you and your fellows removed from this courtroom.”

“Now then Mr Yeager, I have a question for you. As a cadet you knew of the solemn pledge you would be asked to make upon your graduation to defending humanity. I ask you now, can you still make this oath to us by controlling your ability?”

Eren was too eager to finally be able to defend himself, that he didn’t notice the trap he was about to walk into. Armin suppressed a groan, knowing what would come next.

“Yes, I can Sir!”

“Oh, Is that so? This report from the battle of Trost contradicts your statement. Just after transforming you swung your fists at Mikasa Ackerman, a fellow cadet, twice.”

Eren’s head snapped towards the girl in question, who stood stoically between Rico Brzenska and Armin, her face devoid of any emotion.

“Is Mikasa Ackerman present?” it was a semi-rhetorical question, he already knew she was here, after all she was a key eye-witness and had been personally escorted to the capital by a squad of MPs.

She turned her head and gave Zachary a piercing gaze. “Yes, Sir.” she said blandly. 

“You, huh?” he replied after a moments pause, taken aback by her uncommon Asian features.

“Is it true that Eren Yeager assaulted you when he was in titan form?”

 

“Strictly speaking, no Sir. Assault would imply some form of injury was acquired from the incident but that was not that case. Eren missed both times and Cadet Arlert and I were able to quickly bring him back under control and complete our mission to reclaim Trost, with no further incident. A mission that without Eren would have been impossible.” She continued to stare at Zachary, almost daring him to question her words.

“Eren was forced by the military to use a power no one understands, in a live combat area with minimal preparation and no backup plan. We placed everything on his shoulders, all of humanity’s hope, and asked him to save Trost. Yet despite this he did his part. He served humanity as any good soldier should, and if that’s an executional offence, then there are thousands of other troopers you’ll have to kill as well.”

 

“Objection!” Nile spoke up, forcing the Premier to break eye contact and look to the MP.

“We have reasons to believe that personal feelings play a large part in her testimony, let the records show that Mikasa Ackerman lost her parents at a young age and was taken in by the Yeager family. What’s more, our own investigation into this matter led to a shocking discovery. At the tender age of nine, Eren Yeager and Mikasa Ackerman killed three bandits in the forest by Shiganshina…”

 

“Objection! Irreverent to the trial.” This time it was Armin who spoke up, cutting off the MP without a second thought. “Nothing in Mikasa testimony could have been influenced by emotional sentiment. Every word she spoke was the truth and can be cross-verified by every member of the escort squad, myself included. We had minimal time to prepare even though Eren was still disorientated from his previous transformation. Mikasa wasn’t injured in any way during the incident and Eren was quickly brought back under control.”

Nile looked like he had bitten into something sour, his inflated ego didn’t handle being interrupted by a mere cadet very well. He glared at Armin with anger, which was returned with a cool stare.

Maybe younger Armin would have backed down, but he wasn’t young anymore. He was still a scout at heart, so he refused out of principle to be intimidated by an MP, even if they were the Commander of the entire regiment.

“Commander Dawk is trying to use a closed case of self-defence, brought about because of his regiment’s failure to deal with banditry and other crimes outside Wall Sina, to manipulate the perception of a key witness as to distract this court from her testimony. It is as petty as it is brazen, as it has no place in a court of law, even in a military tribunal.”

“But I suppose corruption is such an integral part of the Military Police, so the moral corruption of its leadership shouldn’t be surprising.”

 

At that the MP exploded, gripping the barrier as if preparing to leap over it. “Listen here you little shit! I am the commander of the Military Police and I will not be talked down to by some jumped up little cun…”

“COMMANDER DAWKS! Compose yourself at once.” Zachary bellowed down from his seat at the seething MP.

 

The corners of Armin’s mouth twitched as he stared at the red-faced commander. Targeting the MP had been a risky move, but it had been far more successful than he could have ever anticipated. What support Nile’s proposition had, both with Zachary and the crowd started to collapse at the sight of a senior officer basically throwing a fit at a cadet.

 

When the red mist left Nile, it dawned on him too. In one move he had undermined both his own case and his personal standing with the Premier. He had made a fool of himself in a very public place and wouldn’t be able to pass it off on a scapegoat like he normally would.

His eye twitched as he saw the tiniest of smirks appear on the blond cadet’s face and realised had been played. Completely and utterly played.

 

He ground his teeth together as he stepped back from the bannister, his nails digging into the palm of his hand. “My apologies Premier, that was… unprofessional.”

Looking back at the boy who had made him dance like a puppet, he was uncomfortably reminded of Erwin. They acted and spoke in a similar manner; composed and steadfast, not reacting in the slightest to his outburst. They had both gotten under his skin with disturbing ease, making him look the fool. Hell, they even looked similar.

He wondered if they were related in some way; a cousin or nephew, perhaps even a secretive son. He shivered slightly at that thought and could practically feel his hair starting to turn grey because if it.

 

“Cadet, what is your name?” Zachary turned towards the Armin.

“Armin Arlert, Sir.”

“Well Cadet Arlert, I would tell you to not interrupt these proceedings but seeing as you are our second key witness, that would be counter-productive. However, I will remind you that in future to treat senior officers with the respect they deserve.”

There was a slight flicker of humour within the Premier’s eyes. He was scolding Armin purely because there were civilians present, rather than to defend Dawk’s authority. The regiment’s corruption was an open secret within the walls, and it amused him to see it called out so publicly.

“Now is there anything else you wanted to add to Cadet Ackerman’s testimony?”

“Only that without Eren, it is likely the majority of the 104th southern cadet corp would have been wiped out. He was crucial in retaking the armoury, which allowed us to resupply and withdraw from the city. He also personally saved my life during the battle, killing a titan which was about to crush me. I ask that these things are taken into consideration for your final decision.”

Zachary pondered his words, scratching his beard as he did so.

 

 

“Consideration?! What is there to consider? That _thing_ is a titan and you two are defending it, all three of them are traitors to humanity!” Dimo Reeves screeched out from the rear of the stands. His voice was nasally and unpleasant, curtesy of his badly broken nose which was covered with bandages and medical tape.

He pointed at Mikasa with his fat, sausage-like fingers.

“That bitch took out two men twice her age and then assaulted me during the battle, does that sound like a normal human being to you? I bet she’s a monster just like him, we should dissect all three of them just to be sure!”

Mikasa sneered at the man, _‘I should have just run you through with my sword, would have been a lot easier. But you are right about one thing; I am like Eren, and maybe one day I’ll show you exactly how monstrous I can be_.’

Dimo’s outburst had broken the seal of silence in the room and soon countless other shouting voices filled the court; Eren was shouting in defence of his friends, proclaiming their innocence; others were shouting either in support of Reeves or against him.

The guards looked around; hands clenched tight around their rifles unsure of what to do. Captain Levi was about to vault over the barricade after he received a small nod from Erwin.

 

“ **SILENCE!!** ” thundered Zachary. He had stood up, toppling his chair backwards, and slammed his fist down on the desk. He loomed over the courtroom; his face warped into a picture of wrath.

“Private Howell and Welch, remove Mr Reeves from this courtroom at once. And if there is one more interruption today, I will hold whoever’s responsible in contempt of court!”

The fat man spluttered and struggled as he was dragged from the room by two burly MPs. Dimo shouted out his name as if it had more authority of the MPs than the commander in chief. Him being literally thrown out of the court onto the hard marble floor was the answer regarding who was more important.

When the heavy oak doors were slammed shut in the merchant’s face the court was once again left in silence. Everyone turned back to the still-standing Zachary.

 

“Despite frequent attempts to turn this trial into a farcical circus, I have made my decision.”

“Eren Yeager, your ability is as dangerous as it is valuable, and I wholehearted believe that within you resides the power to either save or destroy humanity.”

“But nothing in this world would change if humanity isn’t willing to take risks, in the hopes of a better tomorrow. Therefore, with the best interest of mankind at heart I assign full custody of Eren Yeager to the Scouting Regiment, where your abilities can best be utilised to serve us and, if I am wrong about you, the regiment best equipped to terminate you should you betray us.”

 

Armin and Mikasa let out a small sigh of relief, the immediate danger was over, Eren had been assigned to the scouts and wouldn’t be executed. And Captain Levi didn’t even need to kick the crap out of him, although Armin reckoned Levi would have been disappointed at that if he had returned as well.

 

 

A hand rose up, its owner was hidden by a mass of military officers, but his voice was unmistakable, especially for anyone who had enlisted in the last few years. “Premier Zachary, a moment please.”

Zachary had righted his chair and sat back down in it. Clearly, the voice was familiar to him as well, as he leaned forward a fraction. “The court recognises Chief Instructor Keith Shadis of the 104th Cadet Corp.”

The tall man strode forward, his path being cleared as officer and civilian alike moved from his path. Armin noted how he looked older than he did a week ago, his eyes appeared to have sunken even deeper into his face, and the wrinkles around his eyes and forehead had expanded. He knew why, despite the man’s intimidating and frightening personality, Armin knew he cared about his cadets and losing so many in Trost must have taken a dreadful toll on him.

 

“Premier, I would be in remiss of my duty if I didn’t remind the court that Eren Yeager is still 14 years old and has eight months left of his training before his graduation. While I recognise the exceptional circumstances surrounding this case, I must also bring up the effect this would have on Eren. While it is true that boot camp is designed to train soldiers who can operate effectively both independently and in teams, it is also an undeniable fact that even years after their training is complete soldiers will operate at a higher efficiency when working with other members of their cadet corps.”

“Therefore, I believe that completely separating Eren from his fellow cadets would have serious adverse effects on his combat effectiveness and overall morale. As he is also one of the top 10, many of his comrades look up to him as a source of inspiration and motivation, and this separation would likely badly affect them as well.”

 

“Hmm.” Zachary leaned back in his chair, his hand slowly stroking his beard again. “Yes, I can see how that could cause issues. Commander Pixis, as the most senior officer present during the Battle of Trost, what is your assessment on the 104th?”

 

The elderly man had been quiet throughout the trial and was subtly reaching toward his flask when his name was called, despite the whispered protest from his personal aide. A flash of disappointment passed across his face as his drink would have to wait.

“I only interacted personally with three cadets from the 104th during the battle, all of which are in this room. But all three left an impression on me that I shall never forget.”

“I am not ashamed to admit that the plan for the counter-attack did not come from myself or one of my officers, but instead was devised by Cadet Arlert. He was the one to suggest using Yeager’s ability to move the boulder, and to bait the titans into a corner where they could be disposed of via cannon fire.”

“And Cadet Ackerman is perhaps one of the deadliest soldiers I have ever seen; in a single day she has achieved a confirmed solo kill count of 20 titans and an unconfirmed count approaching 40.”

 

The sharp intake of breath around the room was like a howling wind.

Twenty solo titan kills was something that only the most experienced scouts had ever achieved, and that number was built up over years of fighting. The only person who might accomplish such a thing in a single day was the legendary Captain Levi. For an ungraduated cadet to achieve the same feat defied belief.

 

“While these cadets are extraordinary, the rest of their corp are by no means incompetent. During the first phase of the battle, following the overrunning of the vanguard and the withdrawal of the rear guard, the majority of the cadets were left in the city, running low on gas and blades as the armoury had been overrun and supply lines were cut.”

“Despite this, the cadets launched an impromptu and highly dangerous operation to retake the armoury. Not only did they succeed, but according to the initial debriefings, the cadets managed to take down six 3m class titans that had entered the supply room, without the use of 3DMG gear.”

“In conclusion, I believe that the 104th might be one of the finest classes ever trained by humanity, and due to their involvement at Trost they are perhaps some of the most experienced soldiers we have, outside of the scouts and a portion of the garrison, in actual Titan warfare.” The elderly man finished with a gentle smile, privately revelling in the stir his words had caused.

 

Zachary raises a single eyebrow and gives the Garrison Commander an appreciative nod.

“A shining endorsement Commander Pixis, and from what I have heard and seen, it is a well-deserved one indeed. However, I do have a personal question for you Instructor Shadis. Why were the 104th in Trost that day? There was nothing in the training schedule about drills in the district.”

 

Shadis looked shamed faced for a moment. He must believe that his decision to take the cadets to Trost and the Colossal attacking that day had just been incredibly bad luck.

If only he knew the truth.

“A few weeks ago, we had a desertion, and while dropouts aren’t uncommon in the first year of training, for such thing to happen in the last year is rare. The deserter, Annie Leonhart, was on her way to becoming one of the top 10 and was the best cadet we had in hand-to-hand combat.”

“I decided that the cadets needed to get a real taste of military life outside of training, as to weed out any other possible deserters. As the majority of them would likely be joining the garrison after their graduation I decided that Trost was the best place for them to get that experience.”

“I hold myself fully responsible for all of the losses suffered by the class.” There was no lie in Shadis voice. The undertone of pain and loss in his words was unmissable, as he thought about his dead trainees.

 

“Unless you are a titan Instructor Shadis, you are not responsible for any deaths. And while the casualties taken by the 104th is deeply regrettable, it was fortunate they were present in the district on that day. Without them and cadet Yeager, it is likely the result would have been much worse for humanity.”

“And in recognition of their heroic actions in Trost I, Dhalis Zachary, as overall commander of humanity’s armed forces authorise the immediate graduation of 104th southern cadet corp.” he banged his hand against the desk twice before standing one last time.

“Court dismissed.”

 

 

* * *

Later that Day

 

The news of their impending graduation had spread quickly throughout the 104th, though some were still in shock from the battle and the news about Eren, most had taken it in stride as just another example of their type of luck.

They had all been withdrawn from the war-ravaged city as reconstruction teams finally arrived and had been shipped back to bootcamp, where the graduation ceremony would be held.

 

Sasha found herself sitting on the ground, knees tucked under her chin, back resting against one of storage shed’s walls. In her hand rested a small piece of paper, filled with scribbled out words and crossed out sentences. It was supposed to be a letter to her father; they had parted on bad terms and she hadn’t spoken to him since her enlistment. She had left home after he decided to let the Marian refugees convert their forest into farms and had stubbornly refused to speak to him since.

That was a decision she now regretted terribly; she was lucky to be alive right now and she couldn’t even remember the last words she said to him.

She had wanted to write to him, to send him a letter telling him she was sorry, and that she loved him and hoped he and mum were okay. But she didn’t know how to express those feelings; every apology felt hollow; every question about home only highlighted how much she had missed.

She wished Armin was here, he was clever and always seemed to know what to say. She knew if she asked, he would help her write it and do a better job of it than she could ever hope to do.

 

“Yo Sasha.”

She looked up from the messy letter and gave a small smile at the person who stood in front of her.

Connie held a small loaf of bread in each hand and tossed one to her as he slumped down against the wall. Strangely, Sasha didn’t feel hungry and after staring at the offering for a second, she simply placed it in her lap before looking back at the letter.

“Was dat?” he blurted out with a mouthful of bread, gesturing at the letter.

“It’s a letter. To my Pa.” She had told Connie about the reason for her enlistment before, and he had encouraged her to send a letter to her family, but she had refused.

“Oh.” He swallowed down the bread, “Gonna tell him you fought titans and survived?”

 

Connie was partially right; she was going to tell her father that, but this letter was also much more than that. She had made her decision about her graduation and which regiment she was going to join. She was frightened by her decision, but she was going to stick to it.

She owed it to those who didn’t make it.

This letter was going to be her apology; both for leaving and likely for not coming back.

 

“Well, we won’t have to worry about that now, right? Ya’ know, fighting titans. If we’re in the top 10 we can join the MPs and live in the capital; behind two giant walls and access to all the food, we could ever want. That would be the smart thing to do.” Connie said airily.

“Yeah, that’s what a clever person would do.” She replied quietly, not sure how to raise her decision to join the scouts to him. Afterall she struggled enough trying to explain it to herself, let alone Connie.

“And even if we don’t reach the top 10 then we can join the garrison and maybe be assigned to the northern districts. A bit chilly up there but I heard they’ve got hot springs and stuff. They are the safest districts outside the capital as well. That’d also be a smart thing to do.” Connie scratched at the patchy stubble growing across his jawline as he spoke.

 

“I guess there are the scouts as well, Armin and Mikasa will definitely be joining them, but that’s easily the most dangerous option. We’d have to face titans again and go beyond the wall. It might be a bit easier though since we’ve battled them before, and with Eren there we’d have a titan fighting for us rather than against us. It’d still be stupidly dangerous though, and there’s a good chance we wouldn’t make it back.”

Sasha looked at the boy, who quickly avoided her gaze. Something was up with him.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “joining the scouts would be dangerous.”

“Definitely, my mum would smack me silly if I joined them, but I keep thinking about it. I used to think Eren was just a bit crazy with all his Titan rants, but he was right. They did attack again, and we only won because we fought back. If we beat them at Trost, maybe we can beat them again.”

 

Connie was quiet for a moment, picking at his bread idly. She knew the boy well, and she recognised the look of deliberation on his face. He wanted to ask her something.

She felt a spark of hope flicker in her heart. Could it be?

She watched him intently, her breath caught in her throat, not even daring to breathe in case it scared him away.

 

“Hey Sash… Wanna do something really stupid? Like ‘joining the scouts’ kind of stupid?”

She smiled and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Her eyes watered slightly knowing she wouldn’t be alone in her madness.

“With a big idiot like you? Always.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Marco drummed his fingers on the old wooden canteen table. There was only a handful of other cadets in the mess hall; some sat with friends, but most sat alone. There were too many seats that would no longer be filled, too many faces that will never be seen again.

Jean sat in front of him, brushing a hand through his light brown hair whilst bringing a spoonful of broth to his mouth. He was putting on an act of calmness and indifference, but Marco could still see the slight shake in his hand even now. 

He had heard Jean whimpering and crying out at night just like every other cadet. He couldn’t understand why Jean pretended to not be affected by what he saw.

Even Reiner hadn’t tried to hide his pain to the extent Jean had, the giant blond had openly allowed a few tears to fall as he watched the bodies being removed during the clean-up operation. He was like an older brother to everyone, if Reiner could show his pain, why couldn’t Jean?  

 

“Well at least we won’t have to put up with this tasteless gruel in the interior, right Marco? I heard they get beef and pork with every meal! Can you even imagine it?” Jean spoke, looking excited at the thought.

Marco took a deep breath and readied himself. It was time.

“Jean.” he blurted out the name, a fraction louder than he wanted.

He took another breath before starting again, in a quieter tone. “Jean… even if I do reach the top 10, I’m not going joining the MPs. I’m signing up with the scouts.”

 

The long-faced boy froze, staring at him as if he had grown a second head. The spoon dropped from his hand, bouncing off the table with a clang.

“YOU WHAT?!” he shouted, drawing the attention of every cadet in earshot. “Have you lost your mind, Marco?! Why in name of the walls would you join them?”

 

He had run this whole conversation through his head half a dozen times. He had expected this outburst, after all for all their mutual dislike Jean was very much like Eren; both wore their emotions on the sleeve.

“I’ve been thinking about all the things Eren use to say and what Armin and Mikasa said on that rooftop. We had basically given up at that point, all of us sat on the roof waiting to die. But they didn’t. They were in the same situation as us, yet they fought on. And they won. We won. We won because we kept fighting, even as all seemed lost.”

“They have both lost their homes and families to the titans, if anyone deserved to be safe in the interior it's them. But they’re joining the scouts so they can keep fighting for humanity, for us.”

 

“Well of course they think like that, they’re best friends with the suicidal bastard, all three of them have a death wish. They’ve lost things to the titans and want revenge, but you haven’t, so why would you throw away your life as well?”

 

“I don’t want to die Jean; I don’t _want_ to fight titans again. But I’m here because I wanted to become soldier, and fighting titans is what we are trained to do.” 

“If you don’t want to die why the hell would you join _them_?! We were lucky enough to survive Trost, anyone of those titans could have torn you in half. Why would you risk that again when you could live in the interior?” Jean sounded utterly dismayed as he tried to dissuade the freckled boy.

 

A wave of unexpected anger rose from deep within Marco. It was an alien and unpleasant feeling, and one he didn’t fully understand.

“That’s exactly the point, Jean! Four years ago, Trost was the interior. There used to be dozens of miles of habitable land in front of it, inhabited by tens of thousands of people all being protected by Wall Maria. And now we are battling titans on its streets. What’s to say it won’t happen again, huh? What’s to say that soon the ‘interior’ is all that’s left? Humanity can’t win if we don’t fight back and I can’t stand on the sidelines any longer.” He shouted back at his friend.

 

He stood up, looking at Jean’s stunned face at his outburst. “I’m sorry Jean, I know you wanted us to join the MPs together, but I can’t, not anymore. I won’t judge you if you still want to join them, but Trost is your home Jean, not mine. Remember that when it’s time to decide.”

With his piece said Marco walk away, not once looking back even as Jean shouted his name.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The carriage ride from the capital had been long, awkward and uncomfortable for Armin and Mikasa (the constant potholes along the rough dirt tracks hadn’t been kind to their posteriors). Shadis hadn’t uttered a single word for most of the journey, seemingly content to stare out the window at the slowly passing trees.

They were the vanguard of a small convoy; senior officers and representatives of all three divisions followed behind them. Each eager to see who they might gain from the storied 104th.

It was only when the camp outer fence came into view did the instructor finally decided to speak.

“You played a dangerous game today; smart-arsing the Premier and disrespecting Dawk was a ballsy move. But you did well, probably what saved Yeager from execution. Do you still intend to join him in the scouts?”

They both nodded silently.

The ex-commander of the scouts continued to look through the window, seemingly content with their answer. Neither Armin nor Mikasa expected him to speak again but eventually, he did.

“I used to know Yeager’s parents, back before he was even born. His mother was one of kind; fiery and passionate and with the temper to match. She once scared off a squad of MPs who were harassing one of her neighbours, by yelling in their ears for nearly an hour straight.”

A small smile graced his weary face, as he remembered a happier time, before the breach.

“Eren gets it from her you know. His temper.”

Armin and Mikasa knew this. Carla had been a second mother to both of them, they had both been present when she had argued with a merchant or a particular drunk soldier. It may have been over a decade since they had last seen her, but both of their hearts gave a painful clench as the memories of their adoptive mother surfaced.

“His father was a lot calmer; he was a just and honest man, a doctor without equal and a rare spirit within the walls. He spoke of freedom and exploration more than the most scouts did. He was one of my closest friends.”

 

“They both loved their son, but both had very different mindsets about him. After Eren was born, Carla once told me that he didn’t need to be great, that simply being born into this world was enough. Grisha disagreed however, he believed Eren would be one of those chosen people, someone great who could change the world.”

 

“I thought about that every time I saw Yeager; every time he failed and tried again and again and again until he finally succeeded. Every time one of you or another cadet helped and encouraged him or pushed him forwards. Even now I don’t know which parent was right.”

“Eren holds a great power within him, but he is too stubborn and short-tempered for his own good. He’s liable to get himself or others killed before he could do a damn thing to help humanity. He will need others beside him to keep him in control and to guide him even if he doesn’t want to be.”

 

The carriage rolled to a halt as they finally reached the camp. Slowly Shadis turned to them, any trace of his previous smile had vanished.

 

“There’s something abnormal about the two of you; the way you act and fight like two harden war veterans, rather than a pair of green children. I’ve read the reports, and the two of you are mentioned nearly as much as the ‘rogue titan’ or whatever it is they are calling Yeager now. There’s no way you learnt even half the stuff you did from here.”

Shadis’s steely gaze intensified on the two cadets, noting the stiffness in Mikasa posture and the slight paling of Armin’s face.

“I don’t know what the two of you are, or how you became like this, but frankly I don’t care. Stay close to Yeager and watch his back. Maybe the three of you will succeed in changing the world, where so many others have failed before.”

Without another word Shadis pushed opened the carriage door and stepped out, leaving the two speechless cadets behind.

 

 

* * *

Several Hours Later

 

“When you came to me two years ago, you were all useless, naïve children who couldn’t tell one end of a sword from the other.” Shadis bellowed at them from the stage. Behind him stood several men; representatives and commanders from each division, each stood at silent attention.

“Some of you enlisted because you wanted to be a hero. Some of you joined to make your families proud. Others only signed on to get a better life in the capital. But why you joined was irreverent.

Over the last two years, I have done everything in my power to break you. I broke your spirits, I broke your bodies, I tore down your hopes and dreams until all that was left was an empty shell and a blank canvas. Then I rebuilt you, from the ground up. I taught you to fly, I taught you to fight, I taught you to survive!”

 

“Several days ago, you were tempered in the fires of war. You faced Mankind’s mortal enemy on the field of battle, and you survived. Everyone who stands here today has been changed by that experience, for better or for worse.

The losses you endure, the pain you endured and horrors you faced have changed you. Now you are no longer children, you are no longer naïve, and you are no longer useless! ALL OF YOU ARE NOW SOLDIERS WORTHY OF HUMANITY!” he roared out.

“104th, I salute you!” he did, and it was returned by the 150 surviving cadets crashing their fists against their beating hearts in near-perfect unison.

 

“While the top 10 is normally decided by the scores you achieved during your practical and theoretical tests, the actions of certain individuals during the battle of Trost can not be ignored. Therefore, in ascending order here are your top ten;

Sasha Blouse, for her exceptional survivalist skills and combat abilities.

Connie Springer, for his proficient usage and expert manoeuvrability with 3DM gear

Krista Lenz, for her combat proficiency and achieving a solo titan kill without the use of her gear.

Marco Bott, also for his combat proficiency and achieving a solo titan kill without the use of her gear.

Jean Kirstein, also for his expert usage of 3DM gear and the steady leadership he showed whilst under pressure.

Eren Yeager, for his actions during the battle of Trost and his steadfast determination to succeed in any circumstance.

Bertolt Hoover, for his outstanding proficiency in using 3DM gear and achieving a solo titan kill without the use of hir gear.

Reiner Braun, for his exception physically strength, combat abilities and 3DM competency. He also achieved two solo titan kills, one without the use of his gear.”

Armin Arlert, for the extraordinary leadership and tactical brilliance he showed during combat and for achieving 3 solo titans kills and 2 assists.

Mikasa Ackerman, for her unmatched lethality in combat; slaying between 20 to 40 titans alone in a single engagement.

The rest of you, take a look, these are the top of your class!”

 

The other cadets saluted at the top 10 (technically 9 as Eren was not present at the ceremony, being already assigned to the scouts.) and they in turn saluted to the men on stage.

 

“As of this moment, you have three options open to you; The Garrison Regiment – responsible for defending and maintaining the Walls, the Scout Regiment – responsible for riding out and reclaiming our lost land and the Military Police – who preserve law and order in the capital and Sina Districts on behalf of his Majesty, the King.” After presenting their options Shadis stepped aside, allowing Commander Dawk to take centre stage.

 

“As you all know the Military Police Brigade is the primary force of law and order within our territory. Not only do we ensure peace and stability within the walls, but we also serve as the King's personal guard. To be an MP is an honour of the highest degree as we only accept the best of the best. Those cadets who are eligible have already been named and should step forward if they wish to join.” He sounded bored as if he did see the need to convince the top 10 to join the MPs.

After all who _doesn’t_ want to live in the capital?

 

None of the nine eligible cadets moved. Jean had clenched his hand into a fist and was silently cursing to himself, _‘Why?! Why do this Marco?’_ He wanted to step forward, his brain was screaming at him to move, to seize this opportunity and not look back.

But his heart refused. Marco was his friend, his best friend. Jean knew he could be arrogant and sometimes let his ego get the better of him, but he wasn’t a heartless bastard. He couldn’t abandon his friend, even if that meant joining the scouts. ‘ _Walls damnit. You owe me big time for this, you freckled bastard.’_

 

Commander Dawk shot a look of confusion towards Shadis, not seeing the proud smile on the man’s face.

“Top 10, this is a onetime offer. if you wish to join the MPs say so now.” he tried again.

The atmosphere became more and more awkward as Dawk stood in front of silent cadets. The seconds dragged on until Shadis let out a small cough, drawing attention back to him.

 

“Well, it seems like all of the eligible cadets all have a different regiment in mind. Thank you for your time, Commander Dawk.”

Nile stormed off the stage, but not before throwing a glare at Armin, as if he blamed him personally for yet another public embarrassment.

The man could take a small comfort however in being the first MP commander in history to leave a graduation ceremony without a single new recruit. That was surely a feat worthy of remembrance…

 

“Moving on then… allow me to introduce you all to Erwin Smith, Commander of the Scouts.”

 

The tall, broad-chested man stepped forward, the burning braziers behind him highlighted his stern and distinctive facial features.

“Good Evening, I am Erwin Smith, Commander of the Survey corp also known as the Scout Regiment.” His voice was smooth and firm. It carried effortlessly across the yard so even the cadets in the back could hear him clearly.

“Today you will choose your regiment, so let’s cut to the chase here. The scouts need you; it needs all the warm bodies it can get. After the recent titan incursion into Trost, all of you now know first-hand the horrors of which they are capable of, as well as the limits of your own skill. However, this battle has given Mankind a new chance for victory over the titans, I refer of course to Eren Yeager. A cadet many of you know personally, who risked life and limb alongside you during the battle, and when the conflict was at its darkest his ability manifested itself and humanity was able to turn the tide.”

“Humanity’s hope now lies in him, not just for victory over the titans but to learn the very truth of their origins. Our intel indicates that in the basement of Yeager’s home in Shiganshina resides great secrets regarding our enemy. As we speak an expedition to Shiganshina is already being prepared to obtain this vital information and to potentially seal the breach left by the Armoured and Colossal Titan 4 years ago.”

“I will not lie to you, despite this new hope for humanity, the survey corp is the most dangerous option available to you. Over the last four years, we have occurred losses in excess of 60%. 60% in four years, those are horrifying figures. In the upcoming expedition, I estimate a loss of nearly 30% for new recruits, and within 3 years most will be dead. But those of you who survive will become some of the most capable soldiers alive.”

Gasps and whispered conversations could be heard from the assembled cadets; unable to hide their horror and disbelief at those figures. The top 9 remained deathly quiet.

“Now, having heard this dismal state of affairs whoever still wishes to put their lives on the line and join us, remain here. But first ask yourself, can you give your hearts, can you give everything for humanity?”

“That is all. Those who wish to join the garrison may leave.”

And with that the man simply rested his arms behind his back and stood at ease, waiting for the cadets to decide.

 

As expected, there was a sizable exodus as many quickly left, clearly wanting nothing to do with this seemingly Government-funded suicide pact.

Some cadets seemed to hesitate before leaving as if they had been in the midst of some fierce internal debate. None of these cadets looked relieved or happy when they walked away, in fact, most just looked disappointed in themselves.

Finally, silence fell back over the remaining cadets. Armin watched the commander closely, noticing the brief widening of his eyes, the only visible sign of surprise on his face. Still standing in front of him was nearly 25% of the surviving 104th class and all of the top 10 cadets.

 

Before today, the best turn up for the scouts had been the 100th cadet class, the first to graduate after the breach, when 4 members of the top 10 had joined.

Another record was broken that night, as Erwin Smith became the first commander in the regiment’s history to get all 10.

 

“I ask you,” Erwin began looking over those who remained, “if you were ordered to die, could you do it?”

“We don’t want to die, sir!” a voice from behind shouted.

Erwin smiled, “Of course, let us hope that you don’t then.”

“Those who stayed, you are now one of us, allow me to welcome you to the scout regiment. This is a genuine salute soldiers, together we give our hearts!” his voice carried across the yard, as his salute was matched by 40 more.

 

**SHINZOU WO SASAGEYO**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, its my biggest one yet. Editing this chapter has been a bit of pain, so please let me know if there are any bits that don't make sense or if I left in any stupid spelling mistakes.
> 
> Regarding Armin’s top 10 position I debated long and hard about that. I know he’s more of a strategist than a fighter but what sort of time travel fix it fic doesn’t have powerful badass main characters!
> 
> Next chapter (which definitely wont be out till mid may) will either be a bit of survey corp HQ or I might fast forward it slightly to the Mikasa's first Titanic appearance during the expedition! 
> 
> Who's looking forward to RTS starting tonight?! I know I am.


	14. Second First Impressions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Slides into your notifications* "sup"
> 
> So I have some good news and a confession for you.  
> Good News: Exams are all done now  
> Confession: They've been done for about a week and a half and this chapter has been sitting in my hard drive for about that long.
> 
> But before you all sharpen your pitchforks and light the torches, I do have an explanation. I discovered Avatar the Last Airbender (yes I know I'm probably the only person on earth who hasn't seen it before) and I've bombed through all the season over that time, which took up most of my spare time. Oops!

If there was one thing Erwin hated about being the commander of the survey corps, except the grievous casualties his regiment suffered on a regular basis, it was the paperwork. Despite being the smallest arm of the military, it required far more paperwork than the other two.

Permission had to be asked from the central government, the garrison and Premier Zachary every time they went on an expedition. Even opening the outer gates required a folder's worth of documentation to be signed and approved in triplicate.

He suppressed a grimace at his cramping hand as he signed off yet another requisition form.

To his frustration he couldn’t even delegate part of this work to his inner circle of veterans; Levi’s handwriting was utterly atrocious and barely legible on the best of days, and Hanji was…

Well, she was _Hanji_ ; if it wasn’t for Moblit’s constant reminders she’d probably forget to bathe, eat or even sleep, let alone do any paperwork.

 

The only reliable help he had with this was his old friend, Mike Zacharias.

“So how many greenhorns are we getting today?” The heavyset blond and humanity’s second strongest soldier flexed his hand as he spoke, trying to shake away the burning sensation from all the signing he had done.

“40 new recruits signed on, including the entirety of the top 10.” Erwin replied simply as if it were no big deal.

 

Mike stopped writing and looked up from the paper. “40? You got 40 cadets to sign up after they survived Trost? Did you give them your usual speech?”

Erwin raised one of his majestic eyebrows, unaware he had a ‘usual’ speech. “I just told them the facts about the corp, and I don’t think any of them count as greenhorns after what they’ve been through.”

“Well you must have said something to inspire them, we didn’t even get that many cadets from a single class even when Maria fell.”

 

Erwin thought for a moment, even with the paths Eren’s powers had opened for humanity, far more cadets had joined than his most optimistic expectations.

“I don’t think I had anything to do with it. Most of the top 10 seemed set to join the scouts before I even spoke to them; only one of them looked hesitant to join. The cadet’s inspiration came from something or someone else, and whatever it was inspired them more than Trost deterred them.”

 

Mike gave a quick hum, “Fair enough, it’s fortunate we’ve got a new headquarters though. Probably wouldn’t have had room for everyone in the old one. Still, some of the newbies might have to double up… at least for now.”

It was a grim fact of life in the scouts, that being overcapacity was never a long-term problem for them.

Erwin hadn’t been exaggerating about those casualty statistics.

 

“So, do we have any notable cadets joining us, except Yeager of course?” Mike asked a few minutes later.

“Definitely, keep an eye out for Arlert and Ackerman, both friends of Yeager but they distinguished themselves in Trost both as fighters and leaders. Arlert was the mastermind behind the successful counterattack and Ackerman is already shaping up to be a younger, female Levi. I look forward to seeing them both in action.”

 

“A female Levi, huh? Hopefully she has a less ‘shitty’ sense of humour.” Mike snorted at his own bad joke.

Erwin just gave him a look, before pointing at another stack of paper. “Leave the bad jokes to Levi, we’ve still got a lot more paperwork to do.”

 

Mike groaned at the sight of another pile, before suddenly sitting up straight in his chair and sniffing the air several times.

“The new recruits are nearly here.”

 

Sometimes Erwin wondered how Mike’s nose even worked. They were three stories up, in an old dusty castle surrounded by rural countryside, yet he could somehow tell when a group of strangers he had never met before were approaching.

Ultimately, for his own sanity more than anything else, he simply accepts that it just does work, and instead focuses on how best to utilise the tremendous power of Mike’s nose for the betterment of Humanity. 

 

And occasional to check if the milk has gone off.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa felt a strange sensation of home come over her as the old… new… _current_ scout headquarters came into view. They hadn’t lived in the HQ that long in their last life, but it had been some of the most intense, emotional and challenging times in her life.

Betrayal, injuries, persecution, revolution, death, destruction and finally discovering the truth; about themselves and the rest of the world.

It had felt like years at the time but had only been a handful of months from the battle of Trost to retaking Shiganshina.

 

And through all of that, this old castle had been their home. She would never openly admit it, but she had missed it.

 

Someone nudged her side, drawing her out of the memories.

“You alright?” Historia asked gently, as the wagon slowly trundled onward.

“Yeah.” She tugged at her scarf, slightly self-conscious at being caught reminiscing, “Just thinking.”

Historia smiled knowingly and nodded toward the castle. “Impressive, isn’t it?” she asked innocently, wary of the others surrounding them.

Mikasa was momentarily perturbed how quickly Historia had seen through her but pushed it aside realising she was only trying to be friendly.

“Yes. Yes, it is.” She replied in a hushed tone, more to herself than to Historia.

Historia flashed her a quick smile, before turning back to chat with Ymir.

 

When the wagon finally came to a stop in the castle courtyard Mikasa jumped out, swinging a rucksack filled with what little personal possessions she owned over her shoulder. A few items of casual clothing, toiletries and a small penknife she had ‘acquired’ during their time as refugees after the fall.

She had thrown it away in their first life after joining the scouts but had decided to keep it close this time. Using a blade to trigger her ability felt more reliable and elegant compared to biting.

 

She looked up at the ageing fort, seeing some scouts using 3DM gear to clean some of the upper windows. Looks like Captain Midget hadn’t been able to contain his fetish for cleaning and had ordered others to start scrubbing.

She wondered what the Government and people would think if they saw precious military resources being used just to satisfy that man’s desires.

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards at the thought.

_‘It’s good to be home.’_

 

* * *

 

The first familiar face they came across was the survey corp’s resident mad scientist and their old commander Hanji Zoe.

She had, quite literally, ran into the new cadets, nearly knocking Marco to the ground. A maniacal smile was plastered on her face and she was holding a large spear as titan blood slowly steaming off her scout jacket.

“Sorry about that, I didn’t see you there. I was deep in thought.”

Most of the group took a subtle step back, noting how sharp (and bloody) the spear was.

“I’m on a scientific quest and I am of the very precipice of the most monumental discovery in human history. A discovery that will shatter the very foundations of our understanding of the titans and change the world as we know it!” Hanji cried out with fierce determination.

She hoisted her spear above her head and shouted defiantly into the sky as if challenging some great unseen deity.

“I **WILL** find the titan’s reproductive organs even if it’s the last thing I do!”

 

The pained whimper that came from the back of the group at Hanji exclamation would later be applauded as the most realistic imitation of a kicked puppy any of the 104th had ever heard.

 

With her declaration finished, Hanji planted the spear into the group and took a closer look at the group, finally noticing their unfamiliar faces.

“Oh, you must be our newest scouts! Well, I should introduce myself, I’m Hanji Zoe, squad leader and chief titan researcher for the survey corp. But please, just call me Hanji, everyone else does!”

 

“Section Commander!” the ever exasperated Moblit shouted out as he runs towards them, finally catching up with his commander/caree. “Please put the spear away, you’re going to hurt someone.”

“Ah, there you are Moblit! Come say hello to our new comrades.”

Out of breath from his rapid pursuit, Moblit just gave a tired nod to the fearful recruits.

 

“Say,” Hanji started again as if she had just remembered something important, “Which one of you young’ uns is Armin?”

 

Before he could even answer he was pushed forward by a frightened-looking Sasha, clearly as a sacrificial offering to this blood-covered, spear-wielding lunatic.

 

Hanji quickly seized him and pulled him to her side. “Ah the infamous titan whisperer, I’ve heard so much about you! Is it true Eren listened to you, even when he lost control of his titan form?” Armin gave an unsure nod in reply.

Hanji squealed in joy, “Oh, I’m so jealous! I wish I could command a titan.” She finished with a wistful sigh, showing her genuine disappointment.

“But I can live my desires through you, my new best friend! I have plenty of questions so let’s get straight down to business. You’ve been friends with Eren for a long time, right? Tell me, what’s it like being friends with a titan? Does he get sick from the flu, the common cold or food poisoning? Is he allergic to anything? Does he have any unusual dietary requirements or strange cravings for human meat? You were in bootcamp together so you must have seen him in the shower before. Does he have genitals or is he bare like a titan down there? If he does, is it a normal size for a boy his age? I would ask Eren, but Levi is being very selfish and is keeping him all to himself!”

 

Armin’s brilliant mind was reeling at the quick-fire, and somewhat disturbing, questions. He turned his head to Mikasa, giving a silent request for assistance.

Alas, his plea was ignored as Mikasa purposely avoided eye contact and hide a small smile behind her crimson scarf.

 

“Come on Armin don’t be shy; I’m hoping that Erwin assigns you to my squad, and then I can introduce you to my titans; Sawney and Beane. Oh, just think all of the fun we can have together!” Hanji was practically shaking with excitement; her manic smile became even more disturbing at the word _fun._

 

 

“Shitty glasses, let go of that brat.” The dull drawl of Captain Levi filled the yard, as he slowly strutted towards them, with Eren in tow. Armin had never been so pleased to see the vertically challenged man in his life.

“Erwin wants a report from you about your newest… _pets_.”

Hanji made a face which was half disappointed at being pulled away and half ecstatic at the idea of informing the Commander about what she’s discovered.

 

“Aww, Levi aren’t you going to be a gentleman and escort me? I might get lost in this big old castle.” Hanji batted her eyelashes and grins at the man, fishing for a reaction.

Levi tilted his head a fraction and gave her a blank look. “Get moving four eyes, he’s a busy man.”

Hanji let out a dissatisfied huff and took off, dragging Moblit with her. This left the 104th standing before Levi and Eren in a semi-awkward silence.

 

“Captain, permission to talk to my friends for a few minutes?” Eren asked, breaking the hush.

“Tch, fine. You’ve got five minutes with the other brats, then report back to the training ground. Your 3DM abilities are atrocious, and I will not have it in my squad.” Levi walked off without a second glance, muttering under his breath about the ‘shitty’ training they received at bootcamp.

 

“Hey everyone, it’s great to see you. I can’t believe you all joined the scouts!” Eren smiled looking relieved to finally see some friendly faces.

The smile turned slightly strained at the cautious looks he was receiving from a large number of the 104th. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, knowing he couldn’t avoid the titan in the room any longer, “So… about the whole titan thing...”

 

* * *

 

Their second day in the survey corp consisted of a crash course in the long-range scouting formation, being introduced to their specially bred horses and finally 3DM training.

But this wasn’t the usual exercise they had done in bootcamp, where they ‘hunted’ several immobile wooden targets in a forest. This was Scout training.

Now the targets were on wagons and tilts which meant the ‘titan’ could unexpectedly move and turn, causing many unprepared recruits to crash directly into them on numerous occasions. And not only that, they had to avoid other scouts flying around trying to smack them with sticks.

While this might just sound like a cruel hazing prank, there was a reason behind it. It taught scouts to always maintain awareness of their surroundings; just because they have an opening on one target doesn’t mean something wasn't targeting them.

Getting tunnel vision when fighting the titans is a surefire way to reach an early grave.

 

It was arduous, demanding and occasionally painful. And Mikasa loved it! She had been so tired of the same basic exercise back in bootcamp, she could have done it in her sleep. She was so relieved to finally be doing something that challenged her that one of the stick-wielding scouts, Nanaba she vaguely recalls, nearly got the drop on her. She dodged it of course, but it was still close.

 

Once everyone had completed the course to varying degrees of success they had been dismissed. She followed the others to the mess hall for dinner, half-listening to their complaints of sore muscles and bruised skin. Her healing abilities made such things of memory of the past, but she could remember the discomfort she felt after a long training session.

 

She picked an empty table and waited for Armin to arrive; Hanji had dragged him away earlier in the day to discuss her favourite thing, titans. The oddball scientist clearly wasn’t joking about wanting Armin in her squad.

 

 

Mikasa’s solitary table was suddenly occupied by someone else sitting down opposite her, taking the seat she had saved for Armin.

“Alright Scarfy” Mikasa looked up at Ymir’s freckled face, noticing the smug grin the rogue shifter was wearing. She could already tell she wasn’t going to enjoy this.

“Ymir.” She replied blandly, “What do you want?”

“What? Can’t a girl sit with her fellow scout without wanting something?”

“Seeing as we’ve said less than two dozen words to each other over the last two years without Krista being present, I doubt it.”

 

Ymir clicked her tongue, “Fine, I wanted to talk to you about something. I noticed you kept sneaking off, only to find out you’ve been talking to my sweet Krista. So, I decided to keep an eye on you, in case you’re like that moron Braun and trying to steal my girl. And do you know what I found out? I discovered that we have something in common, don’t we scarfy?”

 

The world seemed to come to a screeching halt for Mikasa. The busy canteen suddenly felt very quiet, and her blood ran cold.

 

“What?” she said slowly, hoping she had just misheard Ymir.

 

“Don’t play dumb with me. You might hide it well from the others, but I can see it clear as day. Kindred spirits and all that.” Ymir leaned forward, resting her chin on her hand. Her grin had widened as she spoke.

Mikasa slowly reached for the penknife strapped to her thigh. She had no idea what Ymir’s intension were, but if she was really going to do this right here and now, she would be ready.

 

“You’ve tried to keep it hidden but if I can see it after watching you for a bit, others will soon notice it as well. Are you scared of them finding out?” Ymir cocked her head to the side with a smirk.

Mikasa’s mind raced. Was Ymir going to oust her publicly, or was this some kind of blackmail attempt? Had Historia failed to secure her loyalty, or had she told Ymir the truth without asking them?

 _‘That doesn’t matter right now, think, THINK. What are you going to do now?’_ she thinks to herself, ‘ _Ymir’s titan is agile but not very powerful. Losing it would be a loss, but we could still win without her.’_ Her hand clenched around the penknife; a rudimentary assassination plan was starting to form in her head.

And if Historia was a part of this... _‘I won’t let anyone betray us. Never again.’_

 

“And what is this ‘secret’ we share, Ymir?” she tried to keep the strained tension out of her voice, to limited success. If Ymir’s plan was blackmail, she would play along for now. Then she would strike when Ymir wasn’t prepared.

 

“Oh, I think you know, Scarfy.” Ymir’s grin was practically predatory at this point, like a wolf about to devour its prey. “We’ve both have a thing for short blonds.”

 

Mikasa blinks. Then blinks again.

“… what?”

 

“You and Arlert. You’re always watching him out the corner of your eye and roaming off together. The two of you are practically attached at the hip. You like him, don’t ya?”

Mikasa should have felt some sort of relief that Ymir wasn’t talking about her titan ability, but now she was dealing with something just as secretive and private.

She didn’t fully understand her feelings toward Armin and how they’ve changed since their return, but she did know Ymir was the last person she would talk to about it, after Armin himself of course.

 

So, she quickly brushes off the comment in the vain hope Ymir might drop it. “You’re imagining things. We’re just friends, we’ve known each other since we were kids.”

“HA! Just friends.” Ymir shook her head chuckling softly, “Oh scarfy, I can see I’ve got my work cut out for me helping you. But to be honest I am surprised no one has walked in on the two of you showing how _friendly_ you really are.” She leered.

 

A hard kick under the table shut Ymir up. Mikasa had almost forgotten how irritating and abrasive the freckled girl could be without Historia around to temper her impulses.

“Ouch! There’s no need to get violent, I’m just saying it how I see it.”

“Leave me alone, Ymir. There is nothing to ‘see’, and certainly nothing to discuss.”

Ymir threw up her hands in mock surrender, “Okay, okay. Touchy subject, I guess. I’m only trying to help, after all, I do have experience in the subject on wooing petite blonds.”

“Go. Away.” Mikasa growls out.

Ymir gives a long sigh and shrugs her shoulders, “Well I tried. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t waste your life longing but never acting. Nothing worse than letting someone slip away because you were too afraid to act.”

 

She ignored the rest of Ymir’s speech, silently debating the merits and drawbacks of punching her lights out. Unfortunately, the punch might have to wait as Ymir finally stood up to leave.

 

Ymir gave a final smirk, “Oh, one last piece of advice. When you finally get around to it _,_ don’t go on top. You might end up crushing the poor boy.”

With an impressive of athleticism and swiftness, Ymir vaults over a table and dives out of the messroom, just before a spoon (thrown with frightening speed) is impaled into the wooden door frame, with a loud metallic twang.

 

Across the room Reiner, Connie, Jean and Marco sat at a table with wide eyes and open mouths.

“What the hell was that about?” Jean asked, eyes firmly glued towards the impaled spoon.

“Well, it’s Ymir. She was either being completely insufferable or just really wound her up about something.” Reiner replied, sounding almost disappointed that the spoon missed.

“She decided to wind Mikasa up?! Damn… and we called Eren the suicidal maniac.” Connie shook his head in disbelief.

 

In all the years to come, the story behind the spoon-shaped hole in the doorway became almost legendary within the survey corp.

A cautionary tale passed down from scout to scout, from the most hardened veteran to the newest recruit, that _anything_ in the hands of a pissed off Ackerman could be a deadly weapon.

Even a spoon.

 

* * *

 

Eren nervously rubbed his hands together under the table, feeling distinctively out of place surrounded by the members of Squad Levi; Eld Jinn, Oluo Bozado, Gunther Schultz and Petra Ral.

Between the four of them, they had put hundreds of the horrific titans to the sword. And now they all sat around, each nursing a mug of ale and playing cards.

Gunther had poured him out a drink as well, but he hadn’t touched it. After the teaspoon incident, it just didn’t feel right for someone with his… _condition_ to get drunk. That would be a recipe for disaster.

 

“So Eren,” Petra started, trying to bring him into the conversation. “You must be happy so many of your cadet corp joined up, I saw you talking to one of them earlier; the Asian girl. Is she your friend?”

“Or girlfriend?” Olou smirked into his mug.  

Eren felt his cheeks heat up at that suggestion. “That’s Mikasa. She’s my adopted sister.”

“Wouldn’t stop the weirdos in the capital.” Petra smacked Olou round the back of the head, shutting him up.

“Shut it perv. Mikasa… I’ve heard that name before. Isn’t she the one who killed dozens of titans at Trost?”

Eren couldn’t remember much of the actual battle. He could recall Armin killing that abnormal titan, the pain of getting his leg bitten off, and finally being dropped into a titan's mouth. The next thing he remembered was the garrison threatening to blow Armin, Mikasa and himself up with a cannon.

“Err, I think so. I don’t remember a lot, but at the trial they said she killed up to 40.”

Olou’s smirk shrivelled up and died, as Eld and Gunther started to laugh. “Damn Olou, a newbie nearly topped your kill count in a single day. Better watch out, or the Captain might replace you with her.”

“Tch, brat just got lucky. She’ll probably wet herself first time beyond the wall like Petra did.” Olou had the annoying tendency to imitate Captain Levi, which became even more pronounced when he was self-conscious or embarrassed.

“HEY!” Petra punched him in the arm, looking mortified.

There was another round of laughter from Eld and Gunther.

They may be the best of the best, but without the Captain present they acted like a bunch of fresh-faced cadets back in bootcamp.

 

It reminded him of his own friends and that he wasn’t permitted to spend time with them without expressed permission.

His mood worsened, turning from nervousness to loneliness. As much as he wanted to, he knows he would never be a true part of this team. They might be his teammates, but they were also his wardens and potential executioners should he mess up.

He missed his friends; Armin, Mikasa, Reiner, Sasha, Connie and the others. Apart from those brief few minutes the day before he hadn’t interacted with them; he wasn’t allowed to train or even eat with anyone except the Special Operation Squad.

 _‘Fuck’_ he thinks depressingly, _‘I’m even starting to miss arguing with horseface!’_

 

Eren hopes he can prove his loyalty to humanity soon, and then maybe life can go back to normal… Well as normal as military life could be for a 14-year-old boy who could turn into a 15m titan.

 

* * *

 

A cloaked spectre flew gracefully through the inky black night. The light from the crescent moon could not breach through the dark clouds above.

Like most crimes, this one would be committed in the dark.   

The hooded figure landed with a softness their size shouldn’t permit. His tall, slender form crouched down on the walkway, as brown eyes gazed into the containment area eying up the two pinned Titan with disdain.

He knew the scouts couldn’t be allowed to carry out more experiments on them. They had already discovered that titans are not active at night, hence the unguarded nature of the pen. The lack of knowledge regarding the titans was their greatest advantage, and they couldn’t afford to lose it. Their mission already hanged on a thread; Marcel and Annie were gone. They were the last warriors left and had to complete their mission before they could finally go home.

A bead of sweat rolled down his long face as he drew out a blade out of its holster. The scouts had pinned the titans down with their napes exposed, for their own peace of mind.

Now that choice would be to their detriment.

 

With a quick burst of gas, he flew toward the titans and brought the blades down, slicing through the titan’s flesh with ease. The titans made no sound as they were struck down, only the hissing of steam as their bodies started to breakdown could be heard in the silent night.

He didn’t even look back at his achievement, knowing he had to get away killing ground as soon as possible. He had been lucky in avoiding any night guards and knew all hell would break loose when the remains were discovered.

 

Bertholdt’s relief was almost palpable as he stashed the borrowed 3DM gear back in the storage room. All he had to do now was sneak back to his room and he would be fine. No one would ever know it was him who killed those titans and if they did an inventory on the gear, it would only lead them on a wild goose chase.

Using his military training; both from home and here, he quietly snuck back to his room, and finally closed the door with a resounding click. He rested his head against the cool, hard wood feeling the tension and stress slowly dissipate off him.

He collapsed onto his bed, letting out a long sigh of relief. He fell asleep thinking he had succeeded and was now one step closer to home.

 

He never noticed the person watching him from one of the castle windows, their face obscured by shadows. But nothing could have hidden those dark grey eyes which blazed with fury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't like this chapter tbh, it was one of those things that sounded good on paper (pun not intended) but not so good in real life. I'm really not a fan of writing & editing multiple PoVs and small time-skips in one chapter.  
> But I've started the next chapter and it's flowing better.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm loving the current season of AoT; a few issues with the CGIolossal and the Eren v Reiner fight felt a bit slow, but otherwise it's great.
> 
> And Game of Thrones... yikes, talk about a letdown.


	15. 57th Expedition Pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all,
> 
> I decided to post this now before I watched the Serumbowl. I don't know if my poor heart can survive going through that again...
> 
> Enjoy

Historia let out a long steady breath as the outer gate of the Calaneth district slowly ascended. She ignored the looks and snide comments from the townspeople about wasted tax money as they waited for the command to advance.

The object Armin had slipped her a few minutes ago seemed to burn a hole in her pocket. She knew it could only use it in one specific circumstance, even if a normal titan was about to rip her apart, she couldn’t use it. Nothing had been said directly but she knew she expected her to die rather than waste it. She also knew that he would do the same.

They both had one, a catalyst to kick off their contingency plan should the worst occur. And once that plan begins, neither heaven nor hell would be able to stop it.

She prayed to any power that might be listening that she wouldn’t have to use it.

 

Finally, the signal was given, and Commander Erwin announced the 57th Expedition had begun as the scouts quickly rode forward. Historia focused ahead, trusting in the support squad to take out any titans roaming about the abandoned town just outside the gate. Once they had cleared the ruins, they could form up into the long-range scouting formation and truly begin the expedition.

That’s when things would get serious.

 

_“Gather round recruits, I’ve got your formation positions right here!” Dieter Ness called to them, waving a slip of paper in the air whilst narrowly avoiding the horse trying to bite his bandanna._

_“Because there are so many of you, we’ve had to shuffle around some of your positions. Normally most new recruits are placed in the inner signalling ring, as to keep you away from the Titans. However, in light of your experiences in Trost, the Commander has authorised that some of you be placed in the outer signalling ring, to close any possible gaps in our lines.”_

_“Now don’t be alarmed. There will still be the outer defensive ring surrounding you made up of the more experienced soldiers such as myself and I promise to do everything in my power to keep you lot safe, you have my word.”_

_“Right, positions. Ackerman inner left 2-3, Arlert outer left 3-3, Bott back right 3-5, Braun outer right 2-5, Ymir back left 1-3, Lenz inner right 3-4, Hoover outer left 3-2.”_

_The man continued to list off names and positions for a few more minutes before dismissing them. Historia caught the look Armin gave her and gave a subtle nod back. They needed to talk._

 

Ymir hadn’t been happy with being separated from her while beyond the walls and had even threatened to break formation and ride beside her during the expedition. Not wanting to put Ymir in the firing line (despite her being far less vulnerable than she was) she had promised her a very tempting reward for being a good scout and staying in position.

Judging by the slight red tinge Ymir had on her freckled cheeks when they mounted the horses that morning, she had decided to accept her offer.

 

“Good luck, Krista!” Marco shouted above the din of charging horses as he peeled off to his position.

“And you. Stay safe!” she shouted back. _‘Let’s hope we all do’_

_Sometime later_

 

Judging by the soreness of her backside and the fact the top of wall Rose was just barely visible behind them, Historia reckoned they had been riding hard for just over two hours. She had seen a few titans, but most had been cut down by the defence squads before they had gotten too close.

However, for the last couple of minutes, the right flank had been unusually quiet. Historia hasn’t seen any titans breaking through, but she also hadn’t seen any flare signals. Normally this could be considered a good thing; no titans meant no signals, but there was something wrong with this silence. Especially with him being position in that area.

She wants to believe they had just been really fortunate and haven’t encountered any titans.

She wants to believe they are fine, and the formation hasn’t been compromised.

She looks to the dense grove of trees in the distance, cutting between her and the outer ring. She squints trying to see something, anything to confirm their status.

 

As if taunting her naivety, a single black flare is fire above the tree line, followed moments later but a yellow flare. _‘Shit’_ she thinks grimly, loading and firing her own black flare.

Black meant an abnormal had appeared and yellow meant the formation has been badly compromised. To see both filled her with dread.

Her eyes remained fixed on the treeline, waiting to see what would burst through. _‘Please let it be an abnormal, just a basic abnormal titan. Please.’_

She could hear the cracking wood and heavy thumps before it came into view, smashing through the trees like an unstoppable force of nature. There it was; 15m of thick armoured plating fused to flesh and muscle, topped with short bleached hair and yellow eyes. The arbiter of Wall Maria’s destruction. The Armoured Titan.

 

With shaky hands, she slotted the special object onto her flare gun and waited as Reiner barrelled towards her. At the last moment, she pulled back on the reins of her horse, coming to a stop as Reiner crossed in front of her, only giving her a small passing look.

She lifted the gun to the sky and gave a final prayer as she pulled the trigger.

_‘Good luck, Mikasa.’_

 

* * *

 

Mikasa could already tell something had gone wrong, even before she saw Historia’s special flare. The formation had taken a sharp turn to the left and she could see the forest of giant trees straight ahead. The vanguard and the wagons had already entered it and would soon be followed by the Eren and his squad.

 

Seeing the special signal flare from the right flank confirmed her suspicions. The brownish colour, made from mixing red and green dye from standard flares, looked like a trail of dried blood against the pale blue sky. Morbidly fitting she supposed.

She took a quick look around before pulling up her hood and kicked her heels, pushing her horse forwards. They had planned for this, and Historia had done her part.

Now it was her turn.

 

 

_“There’s a good chance they will try to capture Eren during the expedition,” Armin spoke quietly to his two fellow conspirators. “Without Annie to help them, they’ll have to do it themselves. The Colossal isn’t suited to any kind of chase and capture mission, so it will have to be the Armoured titan.”_

_“If that happens, we have a serious problem. Without the Thunderspears the scouts have no way of breaking through those armoured plates. If he grabs Eren there would be little they could do to stop him. But we do have one thing that could stop him.” He gazed pointedly at Mikasa._

_“The female titan can also harden parts of its body with titan crystals, which was extremely effective against Reiner’s armour. And even if you can’t activate your hardening abilities immediately, you’re a far better hand to hand combatant than Reiner. You can use his size and strength against him as Eren did at Wall Rose.”_

_Mikasa gives a solitary nod but remained silent. If Armin believes she can do it, then she will._

_“If we do this, we’ll lose the element of surprise. They’ll know someone captured and took the titan from Annie. Even if they don’t suspect us, they’ll know that there is someone working against them. They might flee or try and breach the walls again.” Historia adds, taking the side of caution in this plan._

_“I know. But if we lose Eren and the founding titan, we lose everything.” He replies, settling the matter._

As she rides, she mentally steels herself for what she’s about to do. Armin had explained the shift to the best of his ability but had admitted that no words could truly do it justice. She knew how to trigger it, both Eren and Armin had told her about it in their last lives, by drawing blood and focusing on an objective. But it's one thing to hear about it, and another to actually experience it.

 

_“One last thing, Mikasa. Be careful when you change. Having that much raw strength and power at your command is… intoxicating. It’s so easy to lose focus and control and to just let the titan take over. You mustn’t let that happen; we can’t lose you as well.”_

She reaches the forest edge unobserved but continues to ride hard until the grassy plains could no longer be seen through the dense trees.

Pushing away all doubts and concerns, Mikasa stands up on the saddle and jumps off, using her 3DM gear to propel herself upwards.  

She sets her mind on stopping Reiner before drawing out her penknife and slashing it across her palm.

 

A ball of energy formed several metres about the forest floor, whipping up leaves and branches like a hurricane. Bones and muscle started to materialise forming a large humanoid shape, then, as quickly as it appeared, the ball was gone, and a titan was all that remained.

Steam from its transformation slowly poured off its crouched form. The titan raised its skinless hands from the damp earth and stared at them, inspecting them with unabashed fascination. It went to touch its own face when a loud bang echoed through the forest, drawing its attention. Standing up, the titan quickly turned and took off, running towards the source of the sound.

Its enhanced senses could already smell human blood in the air, and it could only hope it wasn’t too late.

 

* * *

 

“ORDERS, CAPTAIN?!”

“LEVI ITS GAINING ON US!”

“CAPTAIN GIVE US THE ORDER TO ENGAGE! CAPTAIN!”

The Armoured Titan was only metres behind the special operation squad, arm outstretched towards them. The very ground seemed to shake under its heavy steps.

Eren felt fear and hatred in equal measure. This was the bastard that breached Wall Maria, costing humanity nearly a third of its population and territory. It had wiped out the support squad that had tried to stop it with sickening ease. Now it was bearing down on them, trying to grab him, and Captain Levi hadn’t done a damn thing!

This was supposed to be the finest squad of titan slayers in history, but they were just running away and letting others die for nothing.

 

“Cover your ears.” Levi warned them, seemingly unperturbed by the monster pursuing them, before firing off an acoustic shell.

 

The ringing in their ears was almost strong enough to block out the sound of their approaching demise. Gradually their hearing returned to them, only to be met by the sound of another soldier getting body slammed into a tree by the Armoured Titan.

 

“Listen up, our job is to protect Yeager no matter the cost. It’s not to let your emotions control you in the heat of the moment. So, we are going to keep pushing forward until I say otherwise, got it?”

 

Eren couldn’t believe it. This was Captain Levi, _the Captain Levi_ , the strongest soldier alive and Eren’s personal hero and inspiration. And he was telling them to just keep running.

_‘No.’_ he thought bitterly _‘He can keep running if he wants, but I won’t let others die for me.’_ He brought his hand to his mouth.

“Eren, no! You’re only permitted to assume titan form if your life is in peril. You swore an oath, remember?!” Petra yelled, catching him in the act. His eyes darted behind them and Petra’s followed.

Their relentless pursuer was even closer now, its plated chin had descended revealing rows of sharp teeth. It almost seemed to be smiling.

Eren placed his hand between his own teeth, feeling the skin tighten under the pressure. A tiny bit more would be enough to break the surface and draw blood.

“Eren!” Petra shouted again, trying to dissuade him.

 

“I wouldn’t blame you. You have a choice to make Eren, either you make the call to believe solely in yourself, or put your trust in your comrades, even if you disagree with their methods.” Levi’s voice was barely a whisper, but Eren heard ever word with startling clarity.

“Either way, do as your conscience dictates. But remember, you must live with that decision for the rest of your life. So as much as you can, choose whichever option you’ll regret the least.”

 

Latching on to the Captain’s line of thinking, Petra tried again. “Eren, trust us.” She said softly, giving him a small, kind smile. Eren caught a glimpse of the faint bite mark around her hand, the symbol of the squad’s acceptance of him following his first failed experiment.

They had forgiven him after that, even when they would have been fully justified to cut him down. They had chosen to trust him.

Could he convince himself to do the same?

 

“Yeager! There’s no more time, decide now!”

 

Eren clenched his eyes shut, trying to block out the sounds of another scout dying behind them.

Maybe he was wrong about them, maybe they were more than wardens, maybe he could be a real member of the team. But only if he trusted them.

“I’M WITH YOU!” he shouted into the sky.

 

Eren could almost feel the titan’s fingertips brush against his cloak when they burst into a small clearing. All around them were dozens of scouts and barrel cannons, all pointed towards them.

Commander Erwin pointed a blade at the armoured titan and screamed, “FIIIRRREEE!”

 

 

 

The trap was masterfully planned out. They had drawn the titan deep into the forest, away from any normal titans who could create problems. The barrels had been set up both on the ground and up in the tree canopies, giving an even greater arc of fire.

Hundreds of metal anchors would be impaled into the target flesh, and the taut steel cables would keep it pinned and immobilised.

It was nothing short of genius and would have worked perfectly against any other titan.

 

Unfortunately, this wasn’t ‘any other titan’, this was the Armoured Titan. Most of the anchors bounced uselessly off its thick armoured plating, not even scratching it.

The handful that managed to sink into the exposed flesh was nowhere near enough to stop its incredible momentum. The sheer speed of the titan tore the barrels clean off their supports, smashing them against scouts and trees alike, showering the area with fragments of wood and steel.

There was a great deal of terrified and pained screaming from the ambushing scouts as the Armoured Titan ploughed through, only being slightly slowed down by the failed trap.

 

“SHIT! Captain, it broke through!” Eld shouted as the titan broke through the smoke.

Levi turned to look back, and for the first time Eren saw an emotion on the man’s face that wasn’t indifference. It was a look of annoyance mixed with the slightest undertones of apprehension.

“Switch to ODM gear, only engage the titan when it gets close. Yeager, you’re with me.”

“Yes Sir!” all four of them said before jumping off their mounts.

 

“But Captain I can…” Eren started to plead with the man.

“No, our mission is to keep you safe. They’re doing their job so we can do ours. Now, head down and keep moving.” Levi overruled him, the look on his face morphing back into one of indifference.

 

* * *

 

The four veterans of the special operation squad were perched on the top branches, watching as the titan approached. No words passed between them, as none were needed. They had killed hundreds of Titans together and almost instinctively knew what the others would do.

First, they would target the ankles and halting its pursuit. Then they would take out the eyes and cut the joints of its arms; blinding and crippling it. And finally, they would attack the nape and kill the bastard.

“The bigger they are…” Gunther spat out, glaring at the approaching foe.

“The harder they fall.” Oluo grunted back.

And their attack began.

 

It started so well, Eld had sliced the titans achilles tendon causing it to stumble and crash against a tree. It only had a second to glare at them for daring to attack him, before Petra and Gunther slashed out its eyes.

The titan bellowed out in pain and anger, covering its ruined eyes with its arm. Olou flew under is arm slicing a deep cut across its armpit, causing the arm to slump down, completely unusable.

 

Eld went for the kill, soaring behind the monster and bring his two blades down against the nape.

They shattered like glass.

 

And then everything went wrong.

 

The titan’s other arm shot out and grabbed his ODM wire mid-air. Eld came to a sudden stop and seemed to float in the air, almost gracefully for a moment before the titan yanked it back fiercely.

He barely had time to scream before his body came crashing down onto the hard ground with a stomach-turning crunch.

The titan’s freshly healed eye opened, then narrowed at them, accessing their positions. A small burst of fire and steam was expelled from its mouth, as it pushes itself upright.

Wanting to avenge their lost comrade, the remaining veterans begin their second attack.

But it proves futile when the titan unexpectedly swings its limp arm around, right into Gunther’s path.

 

Regardless of what military division a soldier ends up in, every one of them is taught in bootcamp about the extents and limitations of ODM gear.

An averagely skilled user can achieve top speeds of around 55mph in a straight line, while a talented (or lithe) users can push that to over 60mph. Gunther was a very talented user of his gear, so was travelling at around 64mph when he collided with the rock-hard plates on the titan’s arm.

The sheer force exerted on his body from travelling at 64mph to standstill in a split second was devastating. Every bone in his rib cage shattered on impact, and the razor-sharp shards of bone were sent flying backwards, perforating his organs like hot knives through butter.

Gunther was dead before his body hit the forest floor.

 

“Eld! Gunther!” Olou cried out in fury, launching himself at their killer. “I’ll kill you!”

He landed on the titan’s face and plunged both his blades into its eye, screaming obscenities.

From her position several metres back, Petra noticed his terrible mistake, but her warning came far too late.

“Olou! Get away!” she cried out.

The monster’s other eye had healed and had just reopened.

 

The titan's hand slammed against its own face with a deafening boom. There was a long moment of silence, with only Petra’s erratic breathing being heard. Blood started to dribble out through the gaps in the titan’s fingers.

The Armoured titan pulled its hand away, allowing Olou’s mangled corpse to fall with a splat. It slowly turned to her; a bloody paste covering the left side of its face, as its solitary eye peered into her very soul.

 

Something deep down inside of Petra broke. Like a dam holding back a wall of terror, it came crashing down at witnessing the brutal demise of her squad.

There was nothing she could do; they couldn’t break through its armour and it had wiped out her squad in a matter of seconds. This wasn’t a fight; this was a slaughter.

Petra screamed in fear and ran.

 

The world started to shake again as the Titan chased her down having no intention of letting her get away. She looked up, eyes wide in dread, as the sun was blocked out by the giant clawed foot being raised overhead. She couldn’t escape; this was the end.

Images of friends and family flashed before her eyes. Eld, Gunther, Olou and countless others she had fought alongside and cared about. Her doting father and loving mother, who she would never see again, and finally to Levi.

Her captain, her mentor, her friend and so much more.

_‘I’m sorry, all of you. I’m so sorry.’_

She closed her eyes as the foot dropped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, who doesn't love a good cliffhanger? ; )
> 
> I was planning on doing one big chapter for the expedition but decided to break it into two parts (Yes I know that's really cruel, but if you're into AoT you should be used to suffering.)
> 
> Tune in next week for the Female vs Armoured Royal Rumbleeeee!!!


	16. 57th Expedition Pt 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, but this chapter damn near killed me. I had no idea how difficult it would be to write a Titan v Titan fight. I was practically pulling my hair out, and every time I opened word to edit I was tempted to delete the whole thing and start again. I'm not fully (at all) happy with this chapter atm, but I'm away for a week so wanted to get it out so you guys don't have to wait another week or two. 
> 
> There is a good chance (if I ever have to will power to look at this chapter again) that this will be re-written at some point but I'll let you guys know if I make any changes. 
> 
> Right, mini-rant over, hopefully, you enjoy this chapter!

From his vantage point, high above the forest floor, Armin could safely ignore the horde of pure titans gathering below him. He was grateful for that, as he could fully concentration on planning their next move.

He had seen Historia’s flare and knew that right now Mikasa was either fighting Reiner or hunting him down. Ultimately, it didn’t matter all that much, he believed in Mikasa and that her combat skills would see her carry the battle.

No, his mind was on what to do next. Historia had been correct in her assessment, no matter the outcome of today they needed to act fast to secure the Colossal and Armoured Titan. It caused him no limit of frustration that for all their schemes and plans, they might only have a couple of days to secure two titans when it had taken them weeks to obtain the Female Titan.

Sometimes he found his mind wandering back to when they returned. He felt like they had wasted so much time, could they have done things differently? It didn’t matter now; they had been given a second chance and probably wouldn’t get a third.

They’d have to make do.

 

“Hey, Armin,” Connie’s voice drew him out of his scheming “you have any idea what we’re doing here? I mean just standing around in trees watching titans try to climb them doesn’t seem all that important and I’m pretty sure I just heard some cannon fire.”

“I’m not sure, Connie. I think something must have happened to the right flank during the operation, as we made a pretty sharp left turn to reach here. They wanted us to keep the normal titans out, so I’m guessing if there are cannons, they’re being used against something we couldn’t.”

Connie ran a hand through his barely existing hair and looked down at the amassed titans. “Shit man, I kinda knew what to expect when I signed up, but this? I know we’re new recruits and all, but I didn’t expect to be kept in the dark so much.”

He tore his eyes away from the sight, looking a bit queasy, and turned to Armin. “How the hell are you so calm about all this? I know you’ve seen Titans before when Shiganshina fell, but even at Trost you seemed so composed.”

 

Armin couldn’t stop the self-deprecating snort that escaped him as he thought of his first time at Trost. “Trust me, Connie, I really wasn’t calm at Trost. I may have looked like it, but on the inside, I felt like I was going to throw up. As for right now, I’m choosing to put my trust in the Commander. He must have a good reason to hide his intentions.”

 

Connie looked somewhat comforted by Armin’s semi-truthful confession. “Do you think the others are doing alright?”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’re fine.”

 

* * *

 

_‘I’m sorry, all of you. I’m so sorry.’_

_Petra closed her eyes as the foot dropped._

 

A noise like a thunderclap resonated throughout the forest and a shockwave sent Petra flying, colliding painfully against a tree. Unbidden, her eyes opened, and she gaped at the sight before her.

There was a hand. A gigantic, skinless hand.

It had grabbed the clawed foot, stopping it only inches away from crushing her like a bug. The hand hung there for a second before it thrust forward, lifting the unstable Armoured Titan off the ground and throwing it back. Its enormous body smashed straight through one of the giant trees, before hitting the ground hard and crashing into another.

 

“Eren?” she breathed out as she looked up at her saviour.

It was a titan, but it definitely wasn’t the hero of Trost.

 

While this new Titan shared his height and proportional build, this one was lacking the same leathery hide the Rogue Titan had.

In fact, this Titan lacked almost any covering at all. Thick, reddish muscle were left open to the elements except for a triangular strip of skin stretching from its groin to its shoulders; covering its abdominal muscles and… breasts?

Each might have been larger than Petra’s body, but they were in the right place and were roughly the right shape. There could be no mistaking it, this Titan had the impossible.

Every Titan ever encountered by humanity had always possessed a deformed, but primarily masculine body. Not once in their recorded history had a Titan like this been seen before.

A female Titan.

The very idea made her head hurt. Titans were supposed to be completely asexual, so what use would they have for breasts if they don’t produce offspring.

 

 _‘Hanji would love this.’_ Petra found herself thinking as she looked at the unique Titan.

 

Her eyes rose past the unusual additions, to the Titan’s face. It was long and pointed, with pale, thin lips, framed on either side by shoulder length black hair that moved softly in the wind. But its most distinguishing feature was its narrow eyes.

They were black; not dark grey or deep blue but totally black. They were utterly devoid of even the smallest speck of colour, leaving no distinction between the pupil and the iris.

They were like two endless voids, which not even light could escape.

 

Her saviour took a step forward, standing between her and her would be killer, which had slowly risen to its feet. A low guttural growl rumbled up the Female Titan’s throat before she threw her arms back and roared for all the world to hear.

 

* * *

 

Mikasa only had one word to describe the feeling of sprinting through the forest in the body of a titan.

Surreal.

She moved her arm, and so did the Titan.

She made a fist, and so did the Titan.

She ran, and so did the Titan.

It was a massive, living puppet which she controlled from the inside.

 

She ducked under thick branches, weaved between giant trees and leapt over fissures and gorges as she ran.

At first, she headed toward the loud bang she’d heard just after her transformation but had now changed course, following the scent of human blood. A part of her mind wondered if her heightened senses was a general titan ability or if it was unique to the Female Titan.

 

Just up ahead, the smell of blood had become far more intense, and she could hear someone screaming obscenities. The voice was then suddenly, and violently cut off by a loud splat then a soft thud of something hitting the ground.

Pushing herself even harder, Mikasa burst through the treeline into an old woodland path, just in time to see Reiner looming over the sole survivor of the special operation squad with killer intent.

She lunged forward, catching the falling foot in an iron grip.

 

She held it for a moment, admiring her newfound strength. She was used to being stronger than most people, her Ackerman blood being responsible for that, but this was something else. With one hand she had stopped a 15m Titan dead.

Then using this strength, she pushes against the captured foot, lifting the traitor off the ground and tossing him away like the piece of garbage he was.

 

Positioning herself in front of the lone scout, Mikasa takes a second to look around. There were three bloody and mangled corpses lying about, the other members of the squad and the source of the overwhelming stench of coppery blood that filled the air, but no sign of Eren or Levi.

_‘They must have kept moving.’_

 

She savoured the look of surprise on Reiner’s face at her presence, he had expected to fight Eren but instead he would face her. The traitor slowly rose to his feet, unsure of what to do. His eyes were darting around as if looking for an escape route.

_‘Oh no, you’re not running. Must have been easy for you to kill those scouts while cowering in your Titan. Let see how you fare against someone your own size, you piece of shit.’_

 

She threw her arms back in a blatant challenge and roared, for as long and as loud as she could, then lunges at him.

 

* * *

 

Eren clapped his hands over his ear at the mighty roar from behind them. Levi, in his usual Levi-ness, showed no sign he had even heard it.

“Calm down, Yeager. They are four of the best Titan killers in the corp. The Armoured Titan is being cut apart as we speak.”

Eren wished he felt as confident as Levi sounded. _‘No. I can trust them if anyone can kill that stupid monster, it's them.’_

“Captain, the trap back there… did the Commander know this would happen?”

Levi didn’t reply immediately, and Eren was about to apologise for speaking out of turn.

Sounding somewhat annoyed Levi answered. “He had a theory something might happen with you on this Op. And his theories are normally right.”

“Sound’s like Armin.” Eren relaxed slightly while thinking of his friend. “He’s usually right about things.”

“Tch, that the blond kid at your trial? The one who made a fool out of Nile and the MPs?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The Captain didn’t reply but Eren got the feeling his friend had just been moved several steps up Levi’s ladder of respect.

 

* * *

 

During her first life, one of the anti-Marleyan volunteers had told Mikasa about an old proverb from her homeland, before it had been conquered and subjected by Marley.

‘When striking the Chief, don’t miss.’

 

And Mikasa had just missed.

 

The fight had started well, she had taken him completely by surprise and gotten multiple good hits in using some of Annie’s techniques, but quickly found she wasn’t as efficient in those moves as Eren had been. She had Reiner in an armlock, but he had broken free and was now starting to fight back.

She dodged and ducked most of his attacks, cautious at how easily he could hurt her with his armoured fists.

Her defence finally failed when she misstepped over a patch of uneven ground, giving Reiner an opening to grab her around the waist.

He forces her backwards, feet tearing up the soil as she’s pushed closer and closer toward the gawking scout. She smashes her elbow down against his back, trying to break his hold but to no avail. Eventually, she’s slammed against the tree, her heels starting to press against the grounded soldier.

Growing desperate to avoid squishing her, Mikasa uppercuts Reiner as hard as possible.

 

The bones in her hand crack like eggshells against his armoured face, but it’s just enough to break his concentration. His grip around her midriff loosens just enough for her to shove him back, giving her room to breathe.

 

This fight wasn’t going as planned; despite his mental illness, Reiner still had the training from two different military forces and had far more experience in his titan form than she had. He was slowly gaining the upper hand while she was being hamstrung by having to defend the vulnerable scout.

 

She dropped to one knee, avoiding Reiner’s punch which cut the giant tree in two, and scooped up the lone scout with her non-broken hand. The women let out a surprised yelp as she was suddenly pulled up and held protectively against a titan’s chest.

Rolling out of the way of the falling tree, Mikasa quickly rights herself upwards and runs.

 

* * *

 

There was a great deal of blood and screaming at the location of the failed trap. Chunks of splinted wood and sheared metal covered the area. More than a few pieces were sticking out of people, rather than the ground.

Erwin coughs, trying to clear the dust and debris from his lungs.

“RE… *cough* REPORT! WHAT HAPPENED?” He hollered out, cutting over the screams.

“Commander! The Armoured Titan broke through, the trap failed!” One scout replied, clutching his side.

Erwin bit back a scornful remark about stating the obvious.

 

“Where did it go?”

“It followed Captain Levi and his Squad.” The scout answered, pointing in the direction with a bloody hand.

“Erwin! We have wounded down here. Orders?” Mike shouted up from the forest floor.

 

“Get anyone who can be moved off the forest floor, it’s too dangerous to stay down there. As soon as that’s done gather up everyone who isn’t injured, the Special Ops Squad will need reinforcements against the Armoured Titan!”

He just hoped it wouldn’t be too late.

 

_‘Hold on Levi, we’re coming.’_

 

* * *

 

Mikasa had almost forgotten how fast Reiner’s Titan could be. Without the plating around his lower leg, he was just as, if not faster, than her. As she ran deeper and deeper into the forest, all she could hear was the pounding of feet as Reiner chased after her.

By leading Reiner deeper into the forest, she had pulled him away from Eren and most of the survey corps, with one exception. Glancing down at the scout she was carrying against her chest, she wondered what she was going to do with her. She couldn’t fight with one hand, especially as the other was still slowly healing.

Eventually, mother nature made that choice for her as a large lake came into view, preventing her from running any further.

 

With few options left, she jumps and throws the scout up into the canopy, hoping she would grab hold to something. She didn’t have time to see if she had, as Reiner charges into her, tackling her away.

 

He was on top of her before she could blink and drives his knee into her stomach, snapping ribs and doubling her over from the blow.

Then he grabbed her by the throat, lifting her several metres off the ground and roared in her face. Clawing at the throttling hand trying to crush her windpipe, she kicked out trying to push him off but only succeed in nearly breaking her foot against his hardened legs.

Reiner drew his spare hand back, intending to punch her head clean off.

 

Panicking and out of pure instinct, Mikasa raises her unbroken hand to catch the fist.

 

It should have been the end for her. Her hand should have shattered like the other, followed swiftly by her skull.

But it didn’t.

Her entire arm shook under the impact, but instead of the snapping of bone, there was an ear-splitting shriek, similar to metal grinding against metal.

 

The two Titans stared at each other, wearing similar expressions of shock. The armoured fist had been caught in a crystallised hand.

 

Reiner pulled away, but Mikasa was faster and decked him across the face forcing him to release the choke hold he had her in.

Dropping back to her feet, she takes a second to marvel at her blue hand. Maybe it was the stress of battle, but something had activated her hardening ability. It was like something had just clicked in her mind, and a flood of memories of Annie utilising it filled her head.

She concentrated on her hand and wanted to laugh she saw the crystal covering thicken before her very eyes.

Turning her gaze to Reiner and his newly shattered jaw, she smirked.

_‘My turn.’_

 

She launches herself at Reiner with a hurricane of blows, smashing off bits of his armour with every hit. Still shocked by the rapid turnaround Reiner’s increasingly desperate counterattacks were easily deflected, bouncing off her harden skin. 

With half his face caved in from the onslaught and her other hand finally healed, Mikasa decides it’s time to finish this.

 

Focusing her hardening abilities away from her hand and into her fingers, she watches as the skinless digits transform into razor-sharp knives.

Without hesitation, she plunges them into Reiner’s body, piercing through the protective plating with ease. One sinks deep into his collar, grinding against muscle and bones, and the other she impales into his groin region, and with all the strength she can muster, she hauls him up.

She lifts Reiner overhead, the muscles in her back and arms bulging under the immense strain, as he flails about uselessly.

Letting out a savage roar, she slams him down, cracking the earth beneath them. 

 

* * *

 

By this point, practically none of the scouts at the forest edge were watching the Titans below. Instead, they looked into the dark forest with fearful eyes at the sounds coming from within.

Loud echoey explosions, terrible roaring and the ear-piercing cracks of falling trees poured from the deep woods. It sounded apocalyptic.

Marco looked pale and worried, while Sasha shifted nervously on her feet. Even the nearby veteran was sweating with anxiety. Historia wanted to say something, anything, to calm her terrified friends but couldn’t muster the courage to do so.

How could she when she was just as frightened? Whatever was happening between Mikasa and Reiner sounded extremely violent, and nothing like the quick skirmish the three of them had hoped for.

 

There was another roar, far louder than the ones previous, and finally a bone-rattling thud, powerful enough to shake the trees they were standing on.

“What the fuck was that?!” a red-headed scout cried out, having to fire his hooks into the branch to avoid falling.

Historia swallowed thickly as she gazed into the forest, wondering the same thing.

_‘Mikasa… what’s happening in there?’_

 

* * *

 

Stand on the lip of a titan-sized crater, Mikasa looked down at her foe. He was face down in the ground, and his left arm was bent at an awkward angle, but to her immense frustration, he was still moving.

_‘Enough already Reiner, it’s over. Just die.’_

 

But he doesn’t. And worst he tries to push himself up again.

Unconsciously baring her teeth and growling, she stamps down on his back, pushing him back into the dirt where he belonged.

_‘Fine. Have it your way.’_

 

Dropping down and straddling his back, Mikasa grabs the chunk of armour covering his right shoulder and begins to pull. As the armour starts to peel off, she forces her fingers into the widening gaps between it and the tender meat below, levering it up. Reiner bellows out as his protection is wrenched away.

 

Rather than discarding the bloody chunk, she decides to use it as a weapon against Reiner. Raising it high above her head, she brings it down hard against the shoulder it had, only moments ago, been protecting.

 

_‘This is for all the scouts you’ve killed.’_

 

She brings it down, again and again, determined to sever his arm in the most vicious way possible.

 

_‘For Carla and Armin’s Grandpa.’_

 

There’s a mighty crack as his bones snap under the successive blows. Leaving the makeshift weapon impaled in his back, Mikasa grabs Reiner’s arm and starts to pull it backwards. Frantically struggling, he tries to break free, but with her entire weight pinning him down, there’s little he can do.

 

_‘and the thousands of people you’ve butchered!’_

 

With a final ruthless twist, she ripped the arm clean off and tossed it away. Blood spurted from his mangled shoulder like a waterfall, puddling on the forest floor. Reiner’s pained screech is choked and feeble as his face is half sunken into the mud.

Mikasa thought it was a beautiful scene.

 

_‘I’m going to tear you apart! Piece by bloody piece!’_

 

She tilted forward, her mouth only inches away from Reiner’s nape and let out a scream loud enough to rupture his human eardrums even through his Titan’s flesh.

 

_‘I’m going to exterminate you!’_

 

Her cheeks tore open as her jaw descended, revealing the rows of teeth inside. Her black eyes seemed to darken even more as she prepared to bite down on the nape, regardless of the protection surrounding it.

She was strong, so strong, she would wrench the traitorous bastard out of there, and there is nothing he can do to stop her.

 

_‘Reiner, GET OUT!’_

 

A quiet voice in her head stopped her, cutting through her bloodlust just as the teeth brushed against the plates.

_“One last thing, Mikasa. Be careful when you change. Having that much raw strength and power at your command is… intoxicating. It’s so easy to lose focus and control and to just let the Titan take over. You mustn’t let that happen; we can’t lose you as well.”_

_‘Armin?’_

 

She froze. What was she doing? Only Ymir’s Titan could bite straight through his armour, she’d only end up breaking her own face trying it, and she would leave herself exposed to a…

Her eyes widened and tried to move her head away, but she was too slow, Reiner’s head jerked back crashing against her face.

Mikasa reeled back, momentarily stunned at the reversed headbutt. She clutched her face assessing the damage; the entire bottom half of her face was a mess; her nose had been broken, and jaw caved in with half her teeth being sent flying down her own throat.

 

Perhaps fuelled by fear and desperation, Reiner ushered forth a surprising amount of strength as he bucked and twisted his giant body, sending her tumbling off his back. 

 

Wounded and wobbling, both once again rose to their feet. Reiner was missing one arm, but his other had already started to heal while he was pinned down. Mikasa’s jaw was a bloody ruin, and she was growing increasingly exhausted, not use to the amount of energy her titan form required.

This was turning into a war of attrition, and neither of them was sure if they could win.

 

If her Titan needed oxygen, Mikasa was sure her breathing would be erratic and laborious. Bringing her fists back up into a combat position, she worried about how much longer she could keep this up.

 

“COMMANDER, ARMOURED TITAN DEAD AHEAD!”

 

A swarm of squads was flying towards them, two dozen grim-faced men and women with Commander Erwin in the lead.

“SHIT, THERE’S ANOTHER TITAN! 15 METRE CLASS!”

“WHERE’D IT COME FROM?!”

 

“SOLDIERS MOVE IN AND SURROUND THEM!” Erwin ordered.

 

Mikasa felt a spark of dread rise within her, Reiner might nearly invulnerable to their blades, but she wasn’t.

_‘I can’t fight off both of them.’_

Fortunately for her, Reiner must have been just as tired from the fighting, or at the very least realised his opportunity to capture Eren had long passed. With one last fearful gaze towards her, he turned and ran.

She didn’t want to let him escape, but if this fight continued like this, both of them could end up captured or being killed, either by the scouts or each other.

 _‘Damnit.’_ she thought before fleeing in the opposite direction. _‘Reiner… next time we meet, you won’t escape.’_

 

* * *

 

Never before in Erwin’s life had validation felt so hollow. He had been right that an attempt would be made on Eren’s life but had failed spectacularly to prepare for it adequately. Now, 20 scouts lay dead, and twice as many were injured. Levi’s squad had nearly been wiped out, and Eren would have likely been captured had it not been for the intervention of the second Titan.

A distinctly female looking Titan from the scant few seconds he had to observe it.

 

There was a great deal of confusion about what had happened between the two titans, but fortunately, there had been one survivor who had witnessed the battle.

“Lieutenant Ral, are you alright?” Erwin knelt down next to the trembling woman. She had been found on a high tree branch, pieces of broken 3DM gear around her.

He wondered how she had gotten up here.

 

“It… it killed them. The armoured Titan. We didn’t stand a chance.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, just continued to stare down at the destruction left by the two titans.

“I…I didn’t want to die, so I ran. But it chased me and was about to kill me when she arrived. She saved me, then attacked it. It all happened so fast.” Petra mumbled.

 

Petra still seemed to be in shock from the ordeal, so a full debriefing would have to wait. The information she had already provided had given him plenty to think about.

 

Rising to his feet, he looks to his second in command. “Mike, please get Petra to one of the medical wagons and have them check for injuries.” He ordered before loading and firing off a green flare into the air, signalling an immediate end to the expedition. There was little more they could be achieved today.

“We’ll need a full debriefing from her when we return to Wall Rose.”

As Mike left with Petra underarm, it gave him some time to think. There has only been one other confirmed observation of Titans fighting on another, and that was Eren during the battle for Trost.

If that infighting came from a human who could turn into a titan, it raised the question about the true nature of the Armoured and Female Titan.

 

 

Less than a minute after Mike departed with Petra, Hanji lands beside him with an unreadable expression.

“Erwin, we lost sight of the Armoured Titan, but we discovered the remains of the Female Titan. Its nape was torn open, and we found this inside.”

She handed the object to him; any sign of her usual eccentricity had been replaced by dead seriousness.

He looked down at the item for several long moments, his heart rate increasing minutely at its significance.

He didn’t realise how dry his throat had suddenly become until he spoke again. “Who else has seen this?”

“Moblit was the one who found it and passed it straight to me. No one else in my squad saw it.” Hanji looked about, making sure they couldn’t be overheard. “He knows not to speak of it to anyone.”

“I see.” He uttered out while balling the object up in his fist, before slipping it into his jacket pocket.

 

This discovery changed a great many things. Erwin had been sure this was a fight between humanity and whoever the Armoured and Colossal Titan answered to, but now he wasn’t so sure.

There appeared to be a third party at play here.

 

_‘Interesting… very interesting.’_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, so I was having a look on Tumblr this week as I wanted to see the reactions to the Serumbowl/basement/Marley had been and I saw something really cool. Someone had mentioned my fic and had many kind words to say about it, (I think that's also the reason for the big uptick in the number of views this story has received - nearly 400 since the last chapter).
> 
> I think it's only fair to repay that generosity. Please go check out 'taku-mune-art' on tumblr, they've done some great artwork including a great post-112 Arumika piece, which this story inspired them to do! (and if they wanted to do something based on this story I think I would probably explode in joy lol)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, Larry, if you're reading this we miss you. Please come back to us!


	17. The Damned, The Defeated & The Determined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This delayed (sorry) chapter is brought to you by Rowboat Girlyman 2 after number 1 spontaneously combusted with joy because of the absolute unit of a person, Taku-mune actually went ahead and did an amazing piece of art based on this fic. 
> 
> I ask you all go and have a look at their Tumblr and see all the wonderful work they have done, and I have also attached the image into this fic (chapter 12) so please go and have a look if you haven't already seen it!

 

_A soldier awakens in an endless nothingness. There is no beginning or end, no walls or floor. Yet the soldier stands none the less, floating weightlessly in the darkness._

_The soldier is afraid and cries out into the void_

_‘Hello?! Is anyone there? Where am I?’_

_Their voice echoes on for an instant and an eternity until silence once again reigns._

_Then another voice slowly fills the void, coming from every direction at once. It’s cold and dark but unmistakably theirs._

_‘You’re in paradise of course. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?’_

_The soldier flinches at the voice, unsure where to look._

_‘W...who are you? What is this!?’_

_The voice was beside him this time, whispering in his ear._

_‘Oh dear, you’ve really lost it this time, haven’t you? Well, it’s not surprising, you’ve always been weak. You just couldn’t stand it anymore; the guilt, the lies, the deaths. So, you decided to run away and hide from it. Pathetic.’_

_The voice moved around, now coming from in front of the soldier. If it had a physical form, it would be looming over them._

_‘How many people have you killed now? Hundreds? Thousands? You slaughtered countless innocent people; men, women, even children.’_

_‘You’re a monster.’ The voice spat, fury and disgust mixed in every word._

_Fear rises from deep within the soldier at the voice’s words, so they shout out, denying the accusation._

_‘No! I’m not a killer, I’ve never hurt anyone!’_

_The denial dies in their throat as a solitary drip resonates through the void. Hesitantly the soldier looks down at their hands and lets out a terrible scream._

_Blood. So much blood._

_Deep mocking laughter echoed in the darkness._

_‘Think on your sins, Reiner. You’ll pay for them soon enough.’_

 

 

 

Reiner’s eyes snapped open and he lurches up, breathing heavily. His head felt like someone had shoved a red-hot poker into his brain. The pain was unbearable.

_‘Fuck, my head.’_

Bertholdt was in front of him, looking alarmed. His mouth was moving but Reiner couldn’t make out anything he was saying through the haze of pain.

Through his blurry vision, Reiner sees that he is high above the ground, surrounded by leaves and branches.

_‘Am I in a tree?’_

He didn’t know how he had got here, and the last thing he remembered was that they were heading towards Shiganshina to retake Wall Maria and secure Eren’s basement. The painful throbbing of his head grew even worse as he tried to piece what happened back together.

His jaw clenches tight, his teeth grinding together, preventing him from crying out. Just as his skull feels like it was about to crack like an egg, the blinding agony suddenly ends. Reiner let out a shaky sigh of relief.

Shakily, he brought his hand up to his head, expecting to find some horrendous injury to explain the pain, but when he pulled it away there wasn’t a drop of blood to be seen.

_‘What the…’_

He stares at the bloodless hand. The pain that had moments ago threatened to consume him had disappeared entirely, leaving him confused and shaken.

_‘I must have fallen asleep and had a nightmare. That makes sense.’_ Reiner reasoned, unnerved by what had happened. He tried to think back about what the voice had said, but like a dream, the memories had already withered away.

 

“Just a dream.” He mumbled to himself, pushing away his worries. He was embarrassed at how worked up he had been about it.

_‘I hope no one got hurt because I was asleep.’_

 

“Oi! Didn’t you two see the withdrawal signal? Get on a horse, we’re heading home!” A grizzled scout shouted up from the forest floor. “You fall behind, you’re left behind!”

 

“Oh shit. Come on Bert, we gotta go!” Reiner jumped to his feet, wanting to kick himself. He must have been fast asleep to miss that.

“Reiner wait!” Bertholdt grabbed his arm, stopping him from leaving. “What happened to the mission?”

 

“What do you mean? The commander gave the signal to retreat, so it must be over.”

 

Bert shook his head, “Not that mission, _our_ mission, Reiner. The one we got from…” he looked around for a second before whispering “Marley.”

“Marley? Who’s that?” Reiner racked his brain but couldn’t recall any squad leader by that name.

 

“Reiner, this isn’t a joke! Can’t you remember what Commander Magath and Zeke asked us to do?”

 

“Don’t you mean Commander Erwin? Did you bump your head or something man, you’re acting crazy?” He worried about his friend and swore to himself he would make Bertie get a check-up from the medic when they got back.

But for now, Reiner just gave him a firm pat on the back and a large grin. “Come on, let’s get going. If we get back to Wall Rose soon, I could ask Krista if she wants to have dinner with me.”

 

If Reiner hadn’t jumped down to the forest floor with his gear, he might have seen Bertholdt looking close to tears.

 

* * *

 

Bertholdt wanted to scream and shout, he wanted to punch something until his fists were bloody and broken to the point were not even his Titan abilities could heal. He knew letting Reiner go after Eren was a risk, but this had turned into a catastrophe.

Reiner, _his_ Reiner, was gone. His whole identity had been completed consumed by this ‘soldier’ personality Reiner had developed and there was nothing he could do to bring back the warrior. In his desperation he had even whispered a dozen words he hadn’t spoken in years to try and bring him back; Marley, Magath and even War-chief Zeke but Reiner only gave him a queer look and asked if he had hit his head.

The last word his Reiner had spoken, after his failed attempt to capture Eren was a whimpered “Annie…”.

 

Rumours were already spreading like wildfire as they rode back towards Wall Rose. The special operation squad had been nearly wiped out and a whole new Titan had been discovered.

Bertholdt felt physically sick when he heard the word Female Titan being thrown about. Suddenly Reiner’s last word made more sense. Annie had either turned on them… or someone had taken her Titan.

Was he the last warrior left?

_‘I hate this. I hate this island, I hate these people for being so harmless, I hate Marcel for sacrificing himself, I hate Annie for leaving us, I hate Reiner for losing his mind. I hate Marley for send us here to wipe them out…’_

_‘And I hate myself for doing it.’_

His eyes burned with unshed tears. He was alone, surrounded by people he’d been ordered to slaughter for the crime of merely existing, by a nation who despised him and his very existence.

_‘I don’t even care if Marley will kill me for failing, I just want to go home.’_

 

* * *

 

Scout Headquarters – Wall Rose

20:45pm

 

The basement room was dim and quiet, the flickering candle on the table was all that held back the darkness that wanted to swallow them whole.

Since Captain Levi had been summoned to Erwin’s office, no words had passed between the two remaining members of the special operation squad. Petra had just finished off her mug of ale disturbingly fast and was reaching to pour out another when Eren broke the silence.

 

“I’m sorry.” He blurts out before he could stop himself. Petra freezes mid-reach but doesn’t turn to look at him.

 _‘She hates me.’_ Eren believed with all his heart. Three of her friends had been killed while he was running away, despite having the power to stop it. If he had been in her position and had lost Armin and Mikasa in the same way, he would never forgive the person.

Eren isn’t sure if it’s the thought of losing his friends or being hated by Petra that is like an icy hand around his throat, nearly suffocating him. 

 

“I should have done something; I could have stopped it. I could have saved them.”

He tried to swallow down the lump forming in his throat. “I know you must hate me for letting them die, but next time I won’t hesitate. I promise you. I won’t fail again.”

The words taste bitter and hollow, like ash in his mouth. _‘How can I promise that? I couldn’t save them, just like I couldn’t save mum. The only thing I’ve done with my power is moving a rock and attacked Mikasa.’_

_‘Why did dad give me this power? How can I help anyone if I’m so useless?’_

 

He didn’t realise he had started to cry until a tear hit the table and was followed by another. Eren went to brush them away when he saw movement out the corner of his eye.

He expected a smack or a punch, followed by Petra screaming and shouting at him, demanding to know why he was crying, and why he let her friends die.

He wouldn’t blame her if she did.

 

But instead of anger and violence, Petra did something Eren didn’t expect.

She hugged him.

 

“Shhh, shhh.” She whispered, the faint smell of alcohol on her breath. “It’s going to be alright.”

She ran one of her hands down the back of his head, brushing his hair like his mother used to do.

“I don’t hate you, Eren. You did what we asked, you mustn’t blame yourself for what happened.”

 

A sob ripped its way from Eren’s throat, and with it came the rest of his sorrow.

_‘Fucking useless.’_

Shame. Unspeakable shame burned through Eren. He hadn’t cried since losing his mother, and now here he was, sobbing on the shoulder of someone he had utterly failed.

“How can you say that?!” he choked out, “They’re gone! They all died because of me.”

 

Petra pulled him in closer and Eren felt her shaking slightly in her own grief. But when she spoke again her voice was firm and resolute.

“No. The Armoured Titan killed them, but they died for us. For me, for you, for all of humanity. They were Scouts, and they gave their lives for their comrades. It will be hard, but the best way we can honour them is to keep moving forward, to keep fighting. And I promise you Eren, next time we find that monster, we’ll kill it together. For them.”

Eren replied by slowly wrapping his arms around Petra, allowing the tears to fall on her shoulder as he squeezed back.

 

 

 

Levi’s hand hovered above the door handle, as he listened in on his two remaining squad members.

 

For all the power Yeager had, Levi had almost forgotten the brat was only 14. Still a kid.

A kid who had been lost both his parents, survived as a refugee for two years living off what little rations the government provided and any scraps that could be scrounged up, then joined the military only to lose most of his teammates in his first expedition beyond the walls.

Eren had been through hell, something Levi knew all too well.

 

He wasn’t a fool, he knew what he was like and how others saw him; cold, abrasive, rude and dismissive. It was a product of his upbringing, an orphan in the underground city surrounded by thugs and raised, then abandoned, by a serial killer.

But he wasn’t heartless.

Never heartless.

 

He would mourn his fallen squad members. Their names and faces would be burnt into his mind for the rest of his life, however long or short that may be. Just like Isabel and Farlan, and everyone else he had lost. But he would do so alone, as was his way.

Eren needed someone to be there for him, to support him, and he couldn’t think of anyone better than Petra to do so.

 

Levi allowed his hand to drop from the handle and come to rest at his side. Erwin had been adamant that Eren be sent to his office as soon as possible, but Levi decides that just this once, Erwin can wait for a bit.

 

* * *

Scout Headquarters – Wall Rose

22:37 pm

 

“I’m sorry for calling you here at such a late hour and under these circumstances, Eren. But there is something I need to discuss with you.” Erwin gestured to the chair opposite him, before picking up one of the many files covering his desk.

Eren sat down, avoiding the commander’s eyes. Captain Levi hadn’t explained anything as they walked to the commander’s office, and his feeling of relief at Petra’s forgiveness and acceptance had evaporated away with every step.

The government would call for his execution for this failure, and the Commander might be the only person who could prevent that.

 

“I assume you are familiar with a personnel file, right? One is created for everyone who joins the military and is consistently updated through their training years. Once they graduate, it is passed on to their new regiment’s commanders, who are expected to record a soldier’s moments of valour and shame, their promotions or demotions, accolades and reprimands.”

Eren gave a bewildered nod, he expected to be grilled about the expedition or questioned about his Titan ability, not to receive a lesson in military bureaucracy.

 

“I’ve been reading through the files for your classmates and noticed a number of discrepancies. I have a file here whose personal details page contains only the cadet’s first name, with no family name. I have another which is practically overflowing with paperwork verifying their identity, to an excessive degree. Your file has been censored so much by the MPs it’s practically unreadable.”

Erwin stacked the files on top of each other and reached for some more.

“These two contain very little information before the breach, only a date birth and where they use to live. This one has multiple references to potatoes in the disciplinary section and this one has nothing but praise for the cadet, not a single bad mark or complaint. If I didn’t know Instructor Shadis personally, I might take this as a poor practical joke or lazy administration work. But he is not a man to do either.”

“I was hoping you would be able to shine a light on all this.”

_‘What the hell? Is this some kind of weird test?’_

 “Oh… okay, Sir. What is it you want to know about them?”

 

“Let’s start with those you are close with or at least spent the most time with. Tell me about them.” Erwin leaned forward, clasping his hands in front of him.

_‘Seriously? Is this a joke?’_

The dead serious look on Erwin’s face told Eren this was anything but.

 

So, with slight trepidation, Eren started to tell the Commander everything he knew about his fellow cadets. He spoke for what seemed like hours, telling the Commander all about his friends while the man sat quietly and listened, only occasionally interjecting to ask for more details or clarity on a certain topic.

When Eren eventually ran out of things to say, Erwin started to bombard him with questions.

Most seemed benign or completely random; Did Connie’s family come to visit him on visitation days? Did Bertholdt talk much about his village? What regiment did Jean want to join before Trost? What made Reiner’s seem like an older brother to you all? Why did she eat it right then and there?

This whole situation didn’t make any sense to Eren, but he answered them anyway.

 

“I have one last question for you Eren. I was reading through Private Arlert’s file earlier and Instructor Shadis noted an almost overnight change in his abilities during his first 6 months of training. Do you know anything about that?”

That threw Eren for a loop, as he had wondered about that many times, yet never figured it out. When he had mentioned it to Mikasa once she had just shrugged her shoulders and said he had been doing extra practise, yet Eren hadn’t seen him do more than anyone else.

Maybe he snuck out at night and did it.

 

“Errm, I’m not exactly sure, Sir. When we were kids Armin was never really a fighter, but I guess he just adapted to military life really well. He’s always been good at stuff when he puts his mind to it.”

 

“I see… well thank you Eren, this has been very informative.” Erwin stood and gestured toward the door, “Go get some sleep. We’ll probably be summoned to the Capital soon.”

 

No longer about to contain his curiosity Eren finally asked the Commander the question which had been on his mind since Erwin brought this up.

“If I may Sir, can I ask why you wanted to know?”

 

Without missing a beat Erwin smoothly replied. “I like to know the soldiers who serve beside me. It’s the least I can do for those who have dedicated themselves to humanity.”

 

_‘Bull. Shit.’_

Commander Erwin was a great man; he was a natural leader, a brave warrior and a tactical genius, but Eren seriously doubted the Commander would spend his precious time asking about the quirks of his newest recruits, especially just after a failed expedition. There had to be something more to this.

But it wasn’t his place to question or call his superior officer a liar, so he bit his tongue (figuratively, of course, turning into a titan in the middle of the scout HQ would not end well for anyone).

 

“That’s very kind of you, Sir. Well, good night Commander.” Eren gave a salute and quickly exited the room, pondering what that had all been about.

 

 

After the door clicked shut, Erwin sat back down onto his chair and began separating some of the files into a separate pile. The information Eren had provided had been just what Erwin needed, and now the final results were staring him in the face.

 

Six files, six names, six potential suspects. One of these six was the Armoured Titan, Erwin was sure of it.

Now he just had to find which one it was.

_‘So… which one of you is the real enemy?’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Suffer-boi has fully lost it, Colossal-boi is all alone, Angry-boi is sad, and Eyebrows-man is scheming. All going down next chapter though...
> 
> This chapter was a bit of a bugger. It was going to be a lot longer (basically all the main cast would have got a brief section with dealing with the failed expedition) but I cut it down because I realised I had bite off more than I could chew.
> 
> Also, who's read the newest manga chapter yet? I won't spoil anything so all I will say is DAMN SON!


	18. The Best Laid Schemes of Shifters and Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay (again), I always seem to post a chapter a week after I say I will. So in future, if I ever give a chapter release date just add a week on and that will be when it actually comes out.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter was a necessary evil to get the story moving, lots of dialogue, but hopefully worth it.

 

Mitras – Wall Sina

2 Days since the 57th expedition

11:13 am

 

Eren let out a long, tired sigh. He was, yet again, in a cold and dark prison cell, several metres underground waiting for someone else to decide his fate. He idly wondered if this was his life from now on, being moved from cell to cellar, then back to a cell when things went wrong.

He rubbed his wrists as he sat on the uncomfortable prison bed, privately admitting it was at least _slightly_ better than last time. They hadn’t chained him to the wall like a wild animal and had even permitted Petra and Captain Levi to stand guard outside his cell, instead of two angry MPs. So at least he had people to talk to.

 

It had been nearly two days since that strange meeting in the Commander’s office and, unsurprisingly, Erwin had been right. A squad of MPs had turned up at the Scout’s headquarters this morning at first light and handed Erwin a missive from the Premier, summoning him, Eren and the remnants of the special operation squad to the capital.

At the commander’s request, Petra and Levi had grabbed their 3MD gear before heading out.

 

Even at that early hour, the castle was quiet. A good portion of the corp had been shipped out the day before, escorting carts full of training supplies in numerous directions. He had asked Petra where they were going, but she wasn’t too sure herself.

“Looks like most of the recruits are going, so it might be a training exercise to determine which squad they’ll be placed in. The Commander gets the final say, but squad leaders can put in a request if someone catches their eye.” She explained with a shrug. “Normally they would all train together, but I guess that isn’t practical with that many recruits.”

 

He had been fortunate enough to see Armin and Mikasa off. It had been weeks since he had been able to spend more than a handful of minutes with them, and even now he could only smile and wave as they left.

 

They rode alongside a sweating Bertholdt, a scowling Horseface and several other people he knew from bootcamp with Hanji leading them out.

She had taken a strange liking towards Armin and was avidly talking to him over her shoulder about her Titan theories and past experiments. Judging from the strained look on his friend’s face when he waved back, Hanji had been doing so for a while now.

 

 

They left the castle with before the morning dew had dried and maintained a steady pace as they travelled. Levi and the Commander rode some distance ahead, having a private discussion. This left Eren and Petra to make idle talk to pass the time; they exchanged stories about their time in bootcamp and couldn’t help but laugh at the wild stories of drunken shenanigans or ill-conceived pranks they both had.

It was nice to be just a normal soldier, even if it only lasted for an hour or two.

 

When they approached Hermina, the southern district of Wall Sina, they were joined by a small army of MPs, who ‘guided’ them through the city, clearing the streets by barking orders and brandishing rifles at any civilians who blocked their path.

It didn’t stop plenty of people from coming out and pointing at them.

 

“Oh my… That’s the titan boy!”

“They let that thing in here?! What are they thinking?”

 “My cousin in the Garrison told me she saw him lifting that boulder in Trost.”

“Wow, he looks so young. I thought he’d be older.”

 

Most of the residents were just curious and wanted to see him. Eren tried to ignore what they were saying about him, but it was difficult. Some people were supportive, a few even called him the ‘Hero of Trost’, as if he was the only one.

But for every bit of undeserved praise he received, he heard twice as many insults; Monster, Titan scum, Bastard, etc. He struggled to remain calm.

Eventually, to Eren’s immense relief, the crowd started to thin out and they passed through the inner gate without him exploding at someone for making another vile comment about his mother and his conception.

 

Rather than returning to their duties in the city, the MPs followed them all the way to the gates of the defence ministry, located in the very heart of the capital. As they entered the massive parade ground out front, they met Commander Dawk and his personal retinue of soldiers.

 

“You’re earlier Erwin, Pixis hasn’t arrived yet and the Premier is in another meeting. You can wait inside, but Yeager must be secured underground until the meeting is concluded.”

 

“Is that necessary Nile? Eren isn’t a threat to us.”

 

“That’s not for you to decide. The security of this meeting is paramount and it’s too dangerous to let him roam about.” Nile waved his men forward.

 

Eren carefully dismounted his horse with a dozen rifles pointed at him, knowing full well they wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him if he stepped out of line. A younger MP trod forward, holding out a pair of shackles with shaky hands.

The fearful MP went to clamp them around Eren’s wrists when Levi stepped forward, blocking the man’s path.

“Eren is a scout, not a common criminal. You’re not cuffing him.” He spoke directly at Nile. The fact he was a superior officer meant absolutely nothing to humanity’s strongest.

 

This defiance almost caused the tense situation to boil over, as a dozen more rifles were quickly levelled in their direction. But Levi remained unfazed and unmoving, almost daring the MPs to try it.

After several long seconds Nile relented, more concerned with getting Eren underground than binding his hands. “Fine, forget the bloody cuffs. Just get him to a cell.”

 

With the rifles still pointed at him, Eren was led through the grandiose building and down a long spiral staircase into the basement and placed in the deepest cell they could find. The ear-splitting screech the door made when it was pulled open told him exactly how long it had been since someone was last placed in here.

When Levi saw the inch-thick dust lying on every surface, his right eye twitched and he quickly pulled up his cravat to cover his mouth. It hadn’t been moved since.

 

Eren thought this whole thing was completely unnecessary; he was loyal to humanity, even if they didn’t trust him.

 _‘I want to kill the Titans more than anyone. What do I have to do to prove I’m on their side?’_ That question brought forth another sigh as he kicked his legs back and forth in frustration.

 

“Yeager, knock that shit off. Being in this filthy basement is bad enough without your constant sighing.” Levi ordered, “It’s giving me a headache.”

“Sorry, Sir.” He mumbled back, not feeling particularly sorry. All he could do now was wait and hope that the Commander comes back with some good news.

 

* * *

 

“So, Erwin, please explain to me how, despite having Eren Yeager at your disposal, the survey corp was forced to retreat only a few hours after leaving Calaneth. I placed him in your custody because you told me you’d be able to retake Wall Maria with his powers. Yet all you have to show for the trust I put in you is two dozen of dead soldiers, including three of our best, and the complete failure to achieve any of the objectives for this expedition.”

Dhalis Zachary sat at the head of the large oak table, fingers steepled in front of him, and with a face so devoid of emotion it could’ve been carved from stone.

Pixis and Nile sat either side of the table to represent their regiments in this debriefing. It was unusual for all four heads of the military to be in one room, ignoring the potential security threat it created, their constant and demanding responsibilities normally prevent such a meeting from occurring. Only in the most serious situation do all four of them meet.

 

Apparently listening to Erwin defending himself, his corp and their continued custody of Eren Yeager counted as a serious situation.

 

“My apologies Premier, but while you are correct that we failed to retake Wall Maria, that wasn’t the only objective for this expedition.”

“Ever since the breach four years ago, humanity has been operating on the belief that the Armoured and Colossal Titan were just two very abnormal, perhaps even intelligent, Titans and that the attack had been a one-off disaster. However, since the Trost incursion and the discovery of Eren’s powers, I believed that a new theory had to be considered. That they were not Titans at all but are in fact ‘shifters’ like Eren.”

He let the thought hang for a moment, taking in the mixed reactions from his fellow commanders.

Zachary’s face continued to be unreadable, Pixis seemed contemplative while Nile looked sceptical.

 

“Testing this theory was our principal objective for that expedition. If I was correct, these shifters wouldn’t allow Eren to fight alongside us, his power would be too much of a threat to their plan, so they would likely try to either capture or kill him. And they did.”

“The Armoured Titan appeared within our formation, breaking up the right flank before heading toward the centre. Anticipating this, I redirected the formation into a nearby forest, intending to capture the Armoured using our restraining cannons, and using Eren and the special operation squad as a lure. Unfortunately, I underestimated our target’s strength and the trap failed.”

“Captain Levi then followed our contingency plan, of ensuring Eren’s safety no matter the cost. Eld Jinn, Oluo Bozado and Gunther Schultz gave their lives for this purpose, and Petra Ral would have died had it not been for the sudden appearance of another Titan.”

“A Female Titan.”

 

Pixis noticeable sat up in his chair. “I’m sorry, my old ears must be failing me; it sounded like you just said a ‘Female’ Titan?” The man asked, sounding almost hopeful.

 

“I did. It was a 15m class, mostly skinless but had a distinctly feminine body shape including what we would recognise as mammary glands. The only such example of these _features_ ever being seen on a Titan. It also showed signs of intelligence and an understanding of martial combat, similar to Eren’s Titan and the Armoured.”

The elderly man did a quick double-take at the flask in his hand before setting it aside with a dreamy smile. “It’s real.” He breathed out, gazing into the middle distance.

 

Many miles away, a girl with a red scarf felt a shiver go down her spine.

 

Zachary rolled his eyes at Pixis’s behaviour and prompted Erwin to continue.

“According to Petra’s testimony, the two Titans engaged in a battle for some time, before the Female picked Petra up and led the Armoured Titan deeper into the forest, away from Eren and Levi. After ‘she’ placed Petra somewhere safe, the fight resumed. The Armoured seemed to be winning at first before the Female Titan created some kind of crystalline layering around her hands, which could damage the Armoured’s defences, and started gaining the upper hand.”

“When I eventually arrived with reinforcements, both Titans were injured and fled when we attempted to surround them.”

“I gave the order to pursue, but with gas supplies running low and the denseness of the inner forest obstructing our lines of sight we lost track of the Armoured Titan, but we did discover the remains of the Female. It had torn open its own nape, and we found this inside.” Erwin reached into his pocket, pulling out the object and placing it on the table.

The three men looked at it for a moment, before glancing at each other in confusion.

 

Zachary sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“… Erwin, why have you put a bloody rag on my table?” he asked, sounding somewhat annoyed.

 

Using two fingers, Erwin slides the object across the table allowing his fellow Commanders to have a closer look.

“This _rag_ is a torn fragment from a scout’s cloak. It has the same texture and colouring and because of our need for more weather-resistant clothing than the rest of the military, it’s made from a thicker material. From the conditions of the Titan’s remains, we believe that the shifter inside accidentally ripped their cloak and injured themselves during their escape.”

 

“Hang on a minute. Erwin, are you saying that this ‘Female Titan’ is a scout?” Nile interrupted.

 

“Yes.” Was Erwin’s simple reply. “and there’s something else.”

“During the expedition, there was a 7 minutes period between the Armoured Titan’s first appearance and when it entered the forest. During that time someone fired off a brown flare on the right flank. At the time, this was assumed to be a defective red flare, which isn’t unheard of. But with what we now know about the Female Titan, I suspect it was, in fact, a signal, purposely made to informing the shifter about the approaching threat.”

 

That caused a stir; the very existence of shifters was a grave threat to humanity, someone who had the power of a Titan but could hide in plain sight was a defensive nightmare, especially when the only thing standing between humanity and extinction via Titan was four gates. So, the possibility of someone within the ranks could be assisting the shifters was a sobering thought. How could they deal with this new threat when they can’t even trust their own soldiers?

 

“So, your giant lady Titan must have at least one accomplice within your ranks.” Pixis mused as he rubbed his chin. “And they must have anticipated this attack as well. Otherwise, why have a special flare?”

 

“Could this person be a shifter as well?” Nile queried, looking grim. If the survey corp had already been infiltrated by multiple shifters despite its small size, how many were hiding in the Garrison? Or in his regiment? Could one of them be guarding the King as they speak?

 

“Let us summarise.” Zachary had stood up and walked towards his large window, gazing upon the busy parade ground below.

“The Armoured and Colossal Titans are probably ‘shifters’ like Yeager, and may have infiltrated our armed forces, and therefore would have an in-depth understanding of our weaponry, tactics and vulnerabilities. The fact the Armoured appeared within the formation rather than approaching it indicates they’re a member of the survey corp, while the Colossal remains unaccounted for.”

“And not only that, there’s at least one other shifter who has been hiding in the scouts for Walls know how long, and for whatever reason, these shifters are fighting one another.”

 

He turned around the face them, the morning sunlight silhouetting his form.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say we have been caught in the middle of a civil war.” Zachary let out a huff.

“I won’t allow humanity to be collateral damage in their war, we’ve already lost far too much. Erwin, do you have any leads about the shifter’s identities? They seem to be drawn to your regiment after all.” The semi-accusatory tone in his voice wasn’t missed by anyone.

 

Erwin held his head high, unfazed by the accusation. He would have kept the others in the dark about the shifters if he didn’t have any leads, he didn’t want them doing something rash to flush the shifters out.

“At this moment we have very few leads regarding the true identity of the Female Titan. If we assume the shifter is also female, that leaves approximately 35% of the corp suspect. Right now, there is only a handful of women we can fully rule out, mainly those who were in the reinforcement squad who witnessed the Female Titan first-hand. As for the collaborator, all we know is that they were on the right flank. Their age, rank and gender are completely unknown to us at this point.”

 

Leaning down, Erwin pulled six files out of his bag and placed them on the table.

“However, significantly more progress has been made on the Armoured Titan’s identity. Our investigation points towards them being a former member of the 104th cadet corp.”

 

Nile interrupted with a scoff. “I find that hard to believe, Erwin. Shifters are one thing, but do you seriously think that the Titan which broke through wall Maria, dooming thousands, and wiped out some of your best, is one of those kids? None of them are old enough to even order a drink, and you’re suggesting one of them committed a genocide.”

 

“I find myself in agreement, Erwin. Most of them would have been around ten years old when Wall Maria fell.” Pixis spoke up. “What could possibly make someone so young do such a thing?”

 

Before Erwin could start his explanation, Zachary got involved.

“Enough. I don’t care about why they did it right now; I care about who did it. Once we’ve captured them, we can extract their motives. I’ve got something that can make ’em talk… or encourage them to.” Zachary looked wistful for a moment, thinking his _special_ machine before turning serious once more.

“I expect you have good reasons to suspect them, Erwin. Let’s hear it.”

 

“Yes, Sir. On the day of the initial breach, the Survey corp had just returned from an expedition, we had suffered many casualties, but no one was left behind. The Colossal and Armoured Titan appeared nearly three hours later, while we were still travelling back to our Marian Headquarters. Then at Trost, our situation was reversed. We were on an expedition and was miles away from Wall Rose when the Colossal broke the outer gate. This would rule out any scouts who were enlisted before Trost, as they had no opportunity to launch such an attack.”

“Initially the attack on Trost was nearly identical to Shiganshina. The Colossal appeared outside the wall and kicked in the outer gate, allowing for Titans to enter the city. The next stage would have been for the Armoured to shift and then break down the inner gate, forcing us to fall back to Sina.”

“However, something must have prevented them from changing, something which wouldn’t have affected them last time. At first, I assumed this to be Eren and the reveal of his power, but the timing doesn’t work. The battle had been raging for nearly an hour before the first confirmed sighting of Eren’s titan, so that wouldn’t have stopped them.”

“The other difference between the two attacks was the implementation of the Breach Defense Plan. With the Garrison divided between the van and rearguard, the 104th was broken into squads and spread over the rest of the city. The shifter would have been surrounded by people who knew them, and as the Titans reached deeper into the city the cadets were forced to regroup, preventing the shifter from sneaking away unnoticed.”   

 

“That doesn’t prove it was someone from the 104th. It could have been a member of the garrison, after all, many of the surviving soldiers from Shiganshina were folded under the Trost garrison, and they would have faced the same issues preventing them from changing.” Nile countered, still doubtful.

 

“The Armoured can’t be one of mine, regardless of their original posting.” Pixis jumped in, to protect his regiment’s reputation. “Whoever they are is now a member of the Survey corp, and I haven’t received a single division transfer request in two years.”

 

Erwin nodded at the aged Commander’s words. “A member 104th is the only possible option. They are the only ones who could have been at Shiganshina, were in Trost and had the opportunity to join the scouts. The Colossal is another matter however, they could be almost anyone; garrison, MP, civilian or scout. It’s unlikely we will be able to confirm their identity until we’ve found the Armoured.”

 

Nile grimaced at the reminder the Colossal was still uncounted for, but he couldn’t find any fault in Erwin’s words. At least something good came out of his humiliation at the 104th graduation ceremony, he dreaded to think what would happen if the Armoured had joined his regiment.

 

Zachary frowned as he considered Erwin’s claim. It did make sense, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. “So, if it is a 104th graduate, how did you cut it down to six? You had one the largest intakes in the corps history from this class, am I right?”

 

“Yes, that is true. 40 members of the 104th signed up, but only 33 survived the recent expedition, so it was just as case of profiling those who remained. For the shifter to successfully infiltrate our society, they would have to prevent us from easily cross-checking their origins; likely claiming to have lost their homes and been orphaned during the breach, and then living as a refugee before enlisting. That would explain their lack of paperwork or other official records before the fall.”

“There are six people in the 104th who matched these criteria. We can’t be sure which of these people may be genuine, but I took the opportunity yesterday to divide these suspects into two groups and isolated them in separate locations. Once this meeting is concluded, with your authorisation, I will take Eren and strike at each location, quietly apprehending the suspects without the shifter knowing until it’s too late.”

 

“Very well. Until we know exactly who the Armoured is, I want all six in chains before the day is out. Now, who are they?” Zachary demanded; his voice cold and hard. Pixis and Nile leaned forward, keen to find out who was responsible for all the death and destruction that had been inflicted on humanity.

“Our primary suspects are Bertholdt Hoover, Reiner Braun, Ar…”

 

A growing commotion outside the room drowns out the rest. Raised voices could be heard from the corridor and the four men could hear the heavy footfalls of someone rushing towards the office.

They turned to look at the door, unsure about what was disturbance was about. It was answered seconds later as the office door was thrown open and Anka Rheinberger, Pixis’s right-hand woman and second in command, quickly stormed in with a foreboding look on her face.

 

“Apologies for intruding, but…” Anka swallowed thickly, before continuing. Whatever it was had left her visibly shaken. “But the Armoured Titan has been spotted within Wall Rose.”

 

All four of them were silent, momentarily stunned at the unexpected news. It ends quickly as Pixis surges up to his feet, deceptively fast for a man his age.

 

“When was it spotted and has Wall Rose been breached?” he demanded to know.

 

Anka shook her head “We just received a message from Hermina. Approximately 30 minutes ago the soldiers stationed there reported some kind of lightning strike several miles south-west of the city and spotted the Titan using a telescope. We’ve had no reports of any breaches at this time.”

 

Pixis silently cursed the delay in communication. 30 minutes was a long time when dealing with titans; humanity had lost Shiganshina and Wall Maria in half that time. He turned back to his fellow commanders and tried to make some light of this situation, “Well, I guess this all but proves the shifter theory. After all, an actual Titan couldn’t have such dramatic timing.”

The dry comment was enough to shake the other three out of their stupor. Zachary drew himself to his full height, cutting a very commanding figure, and started firing off orders to his three most senior officers.

 

“Erwin, get Yeager out of that cell and take as many troops as you need. Capture the shifter if possible, but if not… terminate them. Pixis, I want the garrison mobilised to defend the southern and western districts, and be ready to assist the scouts if they need it. Nile, start the evacuating procedures and get as many people into Wall Sina as possible, we must consider the possibility of a breach.”

“Get moving Gentlemen. The fate of humanity may be resting upon us, let us not be found wanting.”

 

* * *

 

Hermina District – Wall Sina

12:31 pm

 

They were pushing their specially bred horses to the limit as they charged out of the capital and thundered back into Hermina, hoping they wouldn’t be too late. With most of the Survey corp spread out within Wall Rose and no time to gather them together, Pixis had offered Erwin one of his rapid response squads to assist them while the rest of his regiment was getting prepared.

 

When Erwin had told his three scouts what had happened, Eren didn’t want to believe it. The possibility that one of his fellow trainees, one of his friends, was the Armoured Titan made his head spin.

_‘How? Why?!’_

He hesitated slightly as the cell door was pulled open, could he really fight someone he had trained and bonded with for years? Even if it was one of the trainees he hadn’t been overly close to, he had shed blood, sweat and tears with all of them. That was a type of bond not easily broken.

As he stepped out, Petra placed a hand on his arm and gave it a quick squeeze. “Are you ready for this, Eren?”

Was he?

 

_“And I promise you Eren, next time we find that monster, we’ll kill it together. For them.”_

_‘No,’_ he resolved, _‘if the Armoured Titan is someone I know, they forfeited the right for mercy or compassion when they destroyed Wall Maria and slaughtered my squad.’_

Eren clenched his hands into fists and felt his heart harden toward his foe, whoever it may be. After everything they had done, to him and to humanity, they weren’t human anymore. They were just a piece of shit Titan playing pretend.

And like all Titans, Eren would put them down.

 

“I’m ready.”

 

 

 

They rode hard through the district, the horse’s hooves relentlessly clattering against the paved streets. Strangely though, that seemed to be the only noise that could be heard in what had been a busy city only a few hours ago.

The sighting of the Armoured Titan had come from here, so Erwin fully expected to see terrified civilians running around, trying to protect their families or valuables. But instead it was quiet; no screaming, no crying children and no ringing of the evacuation bells. Nothing.

He couldn’t shake the growing sensation of _wrongness_ he felt as they moved closer and closer to the outer gate.

 

Shops selling jewellery worth more than his yearly salary were empty, doors left ajar for anyone to walk in and loot. Market stalls selling the finest meats and vegetables had been abandoned, allowing flies and other pests to swarm over the produce.

A well-groomed dog darted across the street, grabbing a sausage off a stall before diving into an alleyway and out of sight. There was no sign of the owner.

 

It was like the whole city had been emptied, but they hadn’t passed any fleeing crowds as they approached the district. Had the whole city been evacuated underground?

_‘Unlikely, even if the abandoned underground cities had enough space, it doesn’t explain where all the soldiers are.’_

 

When they turned the final corner onto the straight before the gate, the sensation becomes almost overwhelming.

The gate was sealed shut, but there wasn’t a single soldier in sight. The lifts lay immobile at the base of the wall, already loaded with barrels of gunpowder, gas canisters, and spare blades, ready to be lifted the 50m to the summit. It was like defence preparations had started but for some reason had been forsaken.

 

Erwin raised his fist, bringing their mad charge to a halt. There was something very wrong here.

“Erwin.” Levi warns, coming to a halt behind him. He was already gripping one of his sword hilts as his eyes surveyed around the area. He could sense it too.

 

“I know.” His hands tighten around the reins. He knew something was about to happen but wasn’t sure what.

 

“What the hell?! Where is everyone?” the leader of the garrison squad, Major Schmidt, said as he pulled up next to Erwin. He was a heavyset man, even larger than Mike, and pushed the upper weight limit for effective 3DM gear usage. But despite this, he had been one of the few soldiers in Shiganshina who managed to kill a titan during the breach.

 

Schmidt looked like he was about to say something else when a shot rang out. Blood and brain matter splattered across Erwin’s face and clothes as the major’s head exploded in a red mist. The force of the blast sent the now headless body flying.

Before he could even process what had happened, something crashed into his side, knocking him to the ground as a second shot rang out. Erwin felt something burning hot pass just over his head, singeing some of his hair just before he landed. Schmidt’s horse let out an agonised screech and collapsed after being hit with the bullet meant for him.

 

Levi rolled off him and leapt to his feet, pulling both blades from their holsters. He glared at a figure on the nearby roof, his face twisting into a look of unrestrained fury as he recognised who it was.

 

“Yo, Levi.” The man shouted, leering down at them with a sadistic smile. The two smoking guns he held told them all he was responsible for the Garrison Officers death and Erwin’s near experience.

“You grown any yet?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "When I told them I was going to combine elements of season 2 and 3 into one arc they called me a madman."
> 
> I'm determined to make Armin and Mikasa have a stress-related heart attack before this fic is done. Nothing is ever easy for our intrepid time-travelling duo.
> 
>  
> 
> While I still have you lot here, I have a quick question about a one-shot I was thinking of doing. If I said the words: EM/AA, kinda (almost entirely) smutty, and female Rivalry ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), would you be interested?


	19. The Ripper and the Shadow King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all, I am still alive.
> 
> Firstly let me apologise for how long this chapter has taken, nearly two months but hopefully the length of this chapter makes up for it.  
> At 11k words long this monster is now the largest chapter by 3k words.
> 
> Small warning, this chapter is kinda dark (not as dark as my first draft but still includes torture and some uncomfortable notions) but not excessively.

 

_“Petra! Get Eren over the wall and regroup with the corp. Focus on the Armoured Titan.” Erwin shouted at her, getting back on his feet._

_Levi had already launched himself at the gunman, hurling his blade like a spear. It bounced off the armoured breast pad but gave Levi time to close the gap between them. He got close but had to dodge away when another shooter fired at him._

_More than a dozen men and women now surrounded them, all with the same strange equipment the original gunman was wearing._

_“Commander!?”_

_“GO!” he roared, taking off to assist Levi in the fight._

_They both turned and kicked their horses onwards. If they could get away from this ambush, Petra could use her gear to carry Eren over the wall. That’s even if they could getaway._

_“He’s over there. After him!”_

_A squad of shooters chased after them, their unusual 3DM gear allowing them to swing with across the city with one pistol while leaving them free to fire with the other._

_Bullets peppered the ground around them, smashing the cobblestone and throwing broken fragments into the air. They made a hard-right turn, only just dodging the next barrage fired at them._

_“Idiot! We need him alive, use the tranq.”_

_“I can’t get a clear shot. The other one is in the way.”_

_“Fuck it, just bag both of them.”_

 

_“Petra! What do we do?!” Eren shouted, taking a quick look over his shoulder at the half dozen men pursuing them. He saw a few of them switching out their pistol’s barrel and levelling it toward them._

_“Get to the wall! I’ll carry you ove-UGH!” Petra’s clamped a hand over her neck and toppled off her horse like a sack of potatoes._

_“PETRA!” Eren pulled back on the reins and brought his hand to his mouth when something hard and sharp impacted against his chest. Dumbfounded, he looked down at the needle sticking through his jacket._

_“No...” he choked out, as a burning sensation centred around the needle rapidly spread through his body, sapping all his strength._

_Eren slipped off his horse and was unconscious before he even hit the floor._

 

* * *

 

_‘If you want to save Mikasa… Armin… All of them… Then you have to learn how to control this power.’_

 

“Wakey wakey, Eren.”

 

“Dad?” Eren slurred out, the memory of his father’s last words strangely clear in his foggy mind.

 

“Ha! I fucking hope not. Don’t want no bastards running around…” the voice snorted in derision, and Eren could feel the hot breath against his face. The faint whiff of alcohol made his insides curl.

With great difficulty, Eren’s eyes slowly opened. The drugged haze started to dissipate, and he finally saw the person crouched in front of him.

 

It was the gunman from Hermina, the one who killed the Garrison officer and almost shot Commander Erwin. “There you go, I wasn’t sure if you’d been overdosed. Nasty stuff that, bit too much and it can scramble the brain, but just the right amount and it can knock out a horse.”

Eren tried to lunge at him, planning on scratching his eyes out with his bare hands. Unfortunately for Eren, the multitude of chains and restraints wrapped around his body had him firmly pinned to the wall.

 

The man smiled at his helplessness and gave Eren a mocking pat on the head, “Wooh there Titan boy, stop struggling. You don’t want to be doing any of that transforming nonsense, now do ya? I mean firstly, you’d just end up crushing yourself down here, but secondly…”

 

As if on cue, a door opened in the nearly pitch-black room. The quick burst of light it let in allowed Eren to take in his surroundings; it was another cell, but rather than the ‘smooth’ brick walls of the military prison this one seemed to be dug straight into the earth, the natural stone left exposed and jagged. The open door was the only man-made object in sight. 

 

A woman walked in, pushing a hooded figure forward, causing them to stumble. They struggled to right themselves with the heavy iron manacles tightly secured around their wrists. But before they could, the woman kicked the back of their leg, forcing them to kneel before Eren and the man.

The slight of the slightly bloodied scout jacket they wore caused Eren’s heart to sink.

_‘No… not her as well.’_

 

His captor stood up, brushing some dust off his black trench coat and strutted over to the woman. At the man’s nod, she roughly yanks off the hood.

“Mhhgh! Mhgh!” Petra tries to speak, but the gag stuffed in her mouth prevents her from doing so.

 

“Petra!” At the sight of his teammate being dumped in his cell, Eren immediately abandoned any inkling he had of transforming. He refused to kill someone he cared about just so he could potentially escape, even if that’s what the man was banking on.

 

“Mhhghen!”

 

“Aw, they’re trying to talk to each other, ain’t that cute. Caven, help her out.”

 

The woman, Caven, untied Petra’s gag and drops it to the floor.

“Bastards! Who the hell are you?! Eren are you alr…” is all she manages to get out before the man grabs her face, forcing her mouth shut.

 

“Tsk, if you’re gonna rude I’m not gonna let you chat. Now listen up, my ‘employer’ has some questions for you Titan boy, and you’re going to answer them.” He pulls out a knife from inside his coat, “Normally I would just torture the information out of you, and while your healing abilities would make that very interesting, I don’t want you turning titan on me, so we’re gonna try something else.”

Quick as a flash, the knife slashes against Petra’s cheek, carving a straight line from her jaw to underneath her eye.

 

Petra cried out into his hand, and Eren erupted in a fury, screaming out curses and threats at the man with a vengeance.

 

He smirked in reply. “If you don’t answer the questions; this pretty little thing gets a new scar. You answer with a lie; I’ll cut a something off. You keep lying; well, I have some truly fucked up people in my team, so I’m sure we can think of some other ways to make her suffer. Understand?”

 

At Eren’s furious glare, the man frowned and slowly ran the knife once more across Petra’s cheek, splitting the flesh like it was an overripe fruit. “You really wanna test me, boy?”

At Petra’s pained whimper, Eren tore his gaze away from the psychotic murderer, breaking eye contact and bowed his head slightly in submission.

 

“Good, at least you’re not a complete moron. See Caven, even Titans can be tamed if you use a firm hand.” He pulled the knife away and flicked the blood on the blade towards Eren. The specks burnt against his skin like boiling water.

 

Caven let out a snort, then gestured toward the door. “Of course, Captain. Shall I bring _him_ in, or are you still having fun?”

 

“Nah, I think they get it now. Go get him.”

 

She exited the cell with a nod, leaving Petra and Eren alone with the man. An oppressive silence filled the cell as the man leaned against one of the stone walls, spinning the still bloody knife between his fingers.

“Ya know,” he started, focusing on the spinning knife, “I’ve killed a lot of people in my time, with a lot of different things. I once killed three men in a bar with only a spoon, but there’s nothing quite like getting up close and personal with a knife.”

He tossed it up in the air and caught it with practised ease.   

“Guns are too quick; just point, shoot, dead. It’s boring. You can't savour all the... little emotions; the fear, the desperation, the helplessness. You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. Most are cowards, but I do wonder what kind of person you two are.”

 

“Who…” Petra coughed, spitting out some of the blood which had dribbled into her mouth, and grimacing at the pain. “Who are you?”

 

“Well girlie, since the two of us are going to be getting _real_ close soon if Titan boy plays dumb, the name’s Kenny, although most people know me simply as ‘The Ripper’. A pleasure to meet you.”

 

Petra’s blood ran cold, and her heart felt like it was suddenly encased in ice. The Ripper was an infamous serial killer, who’s killings were so numerous and widespread that not even the government-controlled newspapers could avoid reporting on. She didn’t even know if he was real or just an urban myth, to have killed so many people yet never been caught.

What did this murderer want with them, and where did he get that strange gear? There’s no way a criminal like him to get access to a standard set of 3DM gear, let alone whatever he was wearing in Hermina.

Something wasn’t adding up here.

 

“Levi and the corp will come for us. They won’t stop until they find us.” She hoped she sounded braver than she felt, but the slight waver in her voice didn’t fool anyone.

 

Kenny’s laughter echoed through the barren cell, bouncing off the walls and assaulting them from every direction. “You think Levi would come for you? You his side piece or something?” he seemed genuinely amused at the notion.

“I taught that little runt everything he knows, so he knows better than to piss me off. Oh, from that dumb look on your face I see he never told you about me. Well, that’s just plain rude; you raise a little brat, and he doesn’t even tell his girlfriend about you. What’s this world coming to…” He span the knife once more, chuckling to himself as he did so.

 

That confession stunned both of them; this killer raised Levi? That couldn’t be right, Levi might be stubborn and rude, but he was nothing like this sick, twisted man.

But a treacherous voice in Petra’s head reminded her than in all the years she had known Levi he hadn’t once mentioned his childhood, or anything before he joined the scouts.

And she couldn’t deny that Levi had a darker side that he often kept hidden behind his nonchalant attitude; a pool of anger and fury which roiled deep inside him.

Could Kenny be telling the truth?

 

“You know Captain Levi?” Eren couldn’t stop himself from asking.

 

“He’s a Captain now is he? If you told me that when I first met the runt, I would have laughed in your face, then slit your throat for bullshitting me. Funny story really; there I was in this real scummy brothel, visiting someone important and you know what I find in that room? That little bastard, half-starved and knocking on death's door.” Kenny snorted, “Humanity’s strongest soldier. Give me a break, he only survived because he’s an Ack…”

The rest of Kenny’s story was cut off by the cell door opening and someone new stepping in.

 

 

However, unlike Kenny in his black trench coat and bowler hat, this man was wearing an expensive three-piece suit, a large top hat. His slightly protruding belly screamed non-military for even in the MPs such physically laxity was not permitted.

As he stepped closed Eren nodded he was nearly a whole head shorter than Kenny, barely coming up to the man’s shoulders. From a quick look, Eren believed this new person to be even shorter than Armin, perhaps even Krista.

Peculiarly, he wore a single black leather glove on his right hand, the last two fingers curled inwards, out of sight.

 

The man walked past Petra and Kenny without a second glance, his attention solely focused on the pinned titan shifter. He came to a stop in front of Eren, staring down at him intently as if he was searching for something in the boy’s face.

Whatever it was he was searching for he didn’t find, as the corners of his mouth twisted into a frown.

 

“Is this the one? He doesn’t look anything like _him_.” He spoke sharply, tearing his piercing gaze away to look at Kenny. The man’s voice took Eren by surprise, his upper-class accent and fancy clothes screamed Sina nobility.

Who was he, and what did he want?

 

“You know of any other Titans within the scouts?” was Kenny’s sarcastic reply.

 

If the man was offended or annoyed at this behaviour, he didn’t show it. Instead, he turned back to Eren and took a step closer.

“You are Eren Yeager. The only child of Grisha and Carla Yeager, born 14 years ago in Shiganshina.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“Who the hell are you?” Eren spat at the man’s feet, somewhat creeped out but still furious at what Kenny had done to Petra.

 

The man carried on as if Eren had never spoken. “Four years ago, on the day Wall Maria was breached my family was attacked. Using the power of the Titans, a single man wiped out my family. My three daughters, two sons and my wife. Devoured and crushed under hand and foot, while I could do nought but watch.”

“But then, not content with his butchery of innocent children, he stole a great power that has been in my family for generations.”

“I searched, for years, to discover that man’s identity, but all I had to go on was his face and a claim to have come from beyond the walls. My search only led from one dead end to another, and I began to lose hope. But then you appeared in Trost, also wielding the power of a Titan.”

“I looked into you, and your family, and do you know what I found? Buried in the military archives, there was a single report, written 17 years ago, listing the discovery of a man outside Wall Maria. A man who claimed to have lost all of his memories, except for his name.”

His hands, both gloved and free, curled into fists.

“Grisha Yeager, your father.”

 

“W…what?” Eren stammered out. How was that possible? His father was a doctor, not a killer. And surely, he would have said something if he had come from outside the walls.

 

The man continued, yet again ignoring Eren’s question. “And then it all made sense, I realised it was all linked. Your father infiltrated the walls, murdered my family and stole the power of the founder before he must have passed it down to you. Perhaps he wished for you to use its abilities, or maybe his tenure was up, but his treasonous plot was all for nothing, as only someone of my bloodline can use its immense power.”

 

Had the man not had his back to Kenny, he might have seen the killer look up sharply, with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. He didn’t look happy to hear that.

 

“Your father may be dead, and his plot at an end, but I know he was working with at least two other people. Several months ago, they attacked me and…” his gloved fist seemed to tighten even further, the leather stretching nearly to breaking point. “And they stole something else from me. I want their names now!”

 

Eren’s mind was reeling at this bombardment of information. None of it made sense; His father was a shifter, and what did the man mean by tenure? What the hell was a ‘founder’ and who were these ‘others’?

“What are you on about? What other people?!” Eren snarled at the man. Had they really been kidnapped by some rich arsehole noble who was clearly fucking insane? He and Petra were needed by the corp to stop the Armoured Titan, not sit here and listen to this lunatic.

 

“You believe they will come to your aid, and rescue you? Your loyalty to them is misplaced, boy. No one will find you here.” The noble bit out.

 

Patience at an end, Eren snapped at the man. “Listen to me you moron, we don’t have time for your shitty tales. The Armoured Titan is roaming about inside Wall Rose, and I am the only one who can stop it! Let us go right now, or humanity might lose Rose!”

 

The man shared a quick look with Kenny. While the serial killer still looked annoyed from earlier, he raised an eyebrow and gave the smallest shrug to the man’s unspoken question.

 

“The Armoured Titan and Wall Rose are of no concern to me; both will be dealt with later. But if you wish to keep their identities hidden from me, then so be it. Your friend shall suffer for your stubbornness, Kenny?” the man waved with his exposed hand, locking eye contact with Eren.

 

Petra yelled out as Kenny slammed her down on the ground and knelt on her back. She tried to struggle and kick out, but Kenny pressed one hand over the side of her head and forced it against the hard stone.

Her yells turned to screams as Kenny started cutting into her face once more, moving the blade as if it was a pencil on paper. He wasn’t just slicing her cheek anymore; he was carving something into it.

 

“NO! STOP IT!” Eren cried out, trying to fight against the chains holding him as Petra’s tortured screams echoed in his ears. They were secured so tightly against the wall he could barely move an inch, only bruising himself as the chains dug into his flesh.

 

“Give me their names!” the man shouted back, wincing slightly at how loud the screams were in this small room.

 

“I DON’T KNOW, HE DIDN’T TELL ME ANYTHING!”

 

“He passed the greatest power in history onto you, and you expect me to believe he told you nothing?” he scoffed but lifted his hand once more.

 

The screaming abrupted stopped, as Kenny grabbed Petra by the hair and forced her back up onto her knees. He twisted her head, presenting Eren with her gory cheek, blood pouring from the crude KE and half an N he had etched into it.

The tears of pain that escaped Petra’s eyes mixed in the blood, as they trailed down her face.

 

“You know what happens if you lie again, boy.” Kenny calmly stated, before savagely yanking Petra’s head back and forcing her to look up at him with tear-filled eyes. “Left or right ear, scout; Which do you prefer?”

 

“No, don’t!” Eren begged the men, his throat raw from the shouting. “Please… he didn’t tell me anything. He just… Fuck, I don’t know what he did, but he gave me this power and I never saw him again. I barely remember anything of that night!”

 

The portly man cut off Kenny’s reply. “Tell me the last thing you remember about your father, usurper.”

 

“It was just him in a forest. He didn’t mention anyone, he just kept telling me I needed to control this power. That’s all, I swear.”

 

“That’s all you remember? Well, I suppose memory loss during the transfer is common.” He mused out loud before his expression morphed into a hard glare. He tore the glove off, revealing a mutilated hand; completely missing both the little and ring finger and the top of his middle. Each looked as if it had been sliced off.

“Well, I can fix that. Let me show you your father’s sins.” He spat out before jabbing a single finger against Eren’s forehead.

 

* * *

 

Petra watched, horrified, as Eren’s body started to twitch and spasm, then jerk against the restraints. The movements became so violent small wisps of steam began to appear from where the metal ground against his skin.

“Stop it!” she yelled; the agony from her facial injury momentarily forgotten. “You’re hurting him.”

The man ignored her and pressed harder as if he was trying to poke a hole straight into Eren’s brain. The choking sounds that escaped through Eren’s clenched jaw soon turned into a guttural screaming which filled the cell.

 

“Leave him alone, you bastard!” Petra tried to surge forward, wanting to tackle the man away from Eren, to stop whatever it was he was doing, but Kenny held her firm. His fingers still gripped her long hair, preventing her from moving, and worse, forcing her to watch.

After a few more torturous seconds, the man yanked his finger away as if he had touched something red hot. As soon as the physical connection was broken Eren fell utterly limp, the deafening screaming giving way to the sounds of his shallow breathing.

 

Slipping the glove back on, the man brushed down his jacket and looked down his nose at the unresponsive Eren, “Once my wayward daughter is returned, your stolen power shall be returned to its rightful owners, and your father’s scheme will have failed. Think about his crimes and accomplices, and know that when you tell me their names, I will ensure your last few days will be more comfortable.”

He turned to Petra; lips curled in disgust. “Scout, if I were you, I would make sure the boy reveals their names. If he doesn’t, you will suffer for it as well.”

She glared back, eyes still burning from the pain. She balled up saliva and blood in her mouth and spat it onto the man’s shoes.

“Go to hell!”

The reaction was immediate. The noble stepped back, looking repulsed while Kenny, not having released his hold on her hair, gave a solid kick to her back, causing her to fly forward and smacking her head on the floor, robbing her of consciousness.

 

“Was that necessary Kenny? I had other things I wanted to say.”

Kenny looked down at the two unresponsive captives, then to the clump of torn ginger hair still in his hand. “No, but it amused me, and she had heard what she needed to.” He brushed the hair from his hand onto the floor, leaving it for her to find when she awakens before turning and exiting the cell, without another word.

The other man gives a tired sigh and with one backward glance to Eren, follows Kenny out of the cell.

 

 

 

Petra didn’t know how long she had been unconscious for, but when her she woke up Kenny and the unknown man were gone, and the burning agony of her face had dulled to a merely painful throbbing. Reluctantly, she traced her fingers over the injury, feeling what felt vaguely like letters that had been cut into her face.

When she pulled her fingers away, she saw they were caked in blood. If it hadn’t dried by now, she can’t have been out too long. The top of her head also hurt, but when probing at that injury, she found it was too tender to even brush against. It felt like a whole chunk of her hair had been ripped out of her scalp.

That idea was proven right when she noticed a lock of her hair laying behind her. _‘Bastard.’_ she thought bitterly.

 

She looked over to Eren who was still lying limp in his chains, the slight rise and fall of his chest the only sign of life. With her head still spinning from the heavy blow, she crawled forward, slowing pushing herself to her knees in front of him.

 

“Eren, are you alright? Look at me.”

When he didn’t respond, she reached for his chin and after hesitating for a moment, tilted his head up.

 

His usually bright green eyes were dull and unfocused, but that wasn’t what stole the breath from Petra’s lungs. It was the nine brilliant white streaks radiating out of his dilated pupil, that moved and pulsated like a heartbeat. The streaks momentarily flared when she touched him but quickly died back down.

She was strangely entranced by the lights, she couldn’t explain it, but it felt as if there was a strange connection between those lines and her very soul.

 

“It hurts.” Petra nearly jumps out of her skin at whispered words. She had been so captivated by white streaks she had almost forgotten her intention to make sure Eren was alright. His voice sounded completely different from its normal tone; It was strained and sounded older, much older.

 

She shuffles closer and cradles his head, not sure of what was happening to him, or what they should do now. They were trained to fight titans, not people. They didn’t need to resist torture or how to escape captivity, but now they were facing both.

“They’ll come for us, Eren. I know they will.” She murmurs aloud, not sure if she’s trying to reassure Eren or herself. “We just have to stay strong.”

* * *

 

Many days Later

 

For what felt like the thousandth time Petra ran a finger over the scratched lines on the wall.  

With no natural light in the cell, constant beatings and random interrogations, they had long since lost track of time. The hours and days merged together in a blur of pain, hunger and suffering.

 

Food had become a rarity for them now, a single plate of mouldy scraps was the only thing they had eaten since they got here. Both of them were starting to waste away as their captors held them on the verge of starvation. Every day it became harder to stay awake and active as their bodies started to run dry of energy and were beginning to breakdown muscle and fat to survive. Sometimes even moving from one side of the cell to the other could be exhausting.

Their clothes were filthy, and the stench of stale blood, sweat and bile clung to them like a disease. Petra wasn’t even wearing her own shirt anymore, one of the guards had taken it, claiming it needed to be washed clean of the blood, but then ‘forgot’ to bring it back, leaving only her midriff scout jacket behind to cover herself.

Eren had given her his shirt, leaving him wearing only his jacket but denying the guards the opportunity to perv on her. She was incredibly grateful for that, being able to maintain at least some level of dignity in this hellhole meant more to her than she cared to admit.

They had both received a beating for that, but at least they didn’t take any more of her clothing.

 

The only semi-regular occurrence during their captivity was the brackish water the guards forced down their throats to keep them alive, if only just. So that is what she used to keep track of time.

Ten forced drinks, ten scratched lines.

Had that been the number of days since their capture? She didn’t know, but it already felt like they had been here for weeks.

 

At first, she believed that the corp would come for them, that Levi and the Commander would find them.

But with each new line, Petra found herself doubting it more and more. She had no way of knowing if they were even still alive; they could have been killed in that ambush and the corp would have no idea they had been kidnapped.

Hell, she didn’t even know if the corp was still alive. Without Eren what hope did they have against the Armoured Titan? Blades are mostly useless against that thing so unless the female titan appeared again, there wasn’t much the scouts could do. Especially if the Commander and Levi were gone.

 

With difficulty, she pushed those dark thoughts away and glanced over her shoulder at Eren, who was once again pinned to the wall. At least she could move about the cell at will with only her hands restrained, but the guards took some sick pleasure in forcing Eren to stay in that squatted position for hours on end with a metal gag stuck in his mouth.

 

Between the hunger, abuse and whatever that fat man had done to him, Petra could see that Eren was staring to break too. He had lost weight and frequently drifted between bouts of severe anxiety and depression to times when he’s almost catatonic. He was more lucid when the gag was removed, and they could speak normally but would close in on himself whenever she brought up his father or what the man had said.

 

 

Neither of them could take much more of this, and it didn’t look like help was coming. But there was a single ray of hope in the darkness; at first, there had always been two guards they entered the cell, even if one just leaned against the wall and laughed as the other beat or whipped them, but recently there was only one.

Maybe Kenny believed they were too weak to give a single guard trouble, and in truth they probably were, but if they took them by surprise… Well, they might just have a chance.

 

Weaken by the lack of food and her numerous infected injuries, primarily the vicious scarring on her cheek, Petra stumbles towards Eren and slumps down beside him. She fought the urge to lean against him and sleep, as they so often did when sitting in this position to share body heat in the frigid cell.

 

“Eren,” she spoke to him in a hushed tone, barely audible even from a few inches away.

They had learnt early on that the thick wooden door to their cell wasn’t soundproof. If they spoke too loudly the guard would overhear, and report what they said to Kenny.

Her ribs still hurt from the kicking she received the first time she mentioned the word ‘escape’ out loud.

 

“I don’t know if the corp is coming for us, but we can’t stay here much longer. I have a plan, but it’s incredibly risky. There’s a chance we won’t make it.”

Risky would be an understatement and calling it a plan was exceptionally generous. But in Petra’s mind, it was better than wasting away in a dungeon, waiting for rescue which may never arrive. She would rather die trying to escape than live as a broken prisoner.

 

She whispered the plan into Eren’s ear, and after a long piercing stare, he nodded.

 

* * *

 

Unlike some people, Errol Foster loved his job as a soldier of the 1st Interior Squad.

He loved the power it gave him, to act above the law with impunity. He loved the money and the top of the line equipment they received. In his twisted mind, he was practically royalty compared to the rest of humanity, and he wouldn’t change that for the world.

 

Sure, the captain was a psychotic serial killer who had killed hundreds of people. And yes, sometimes he got stuck with the boring jobs, like having to guard and ‘take care’ of some prisoners, but he always made the best of it.

 

The first few days of a new prisoner is always the most fun, they struggle and fight back, believing that through sheer grit and defiance they can survive. But after a few days of limited food and water and frequent beatings, they start to learn that acting up will only lead to more suffering.

That’s the stage when things start to get boring. Eventually, prisoners stop fighting back and start doing as they’re told, when they’re told. But Errol was an imaginative man, he found other ways to keep things interesting.

 

He had limited the amount of food they got since they arrived, so they would be weak and starving by now. He had kept a prisoner without food for much longer before, but with two prisoners, it opened up new avenues of amusement.

 

Picking up some mouldy bread, he tore it in half and threw the larger piece away. Only one of them would be eating today; maybe he’d make them fight over it or just force one to watch the other eat. A cruel smile appeared on his face as he pictured all the different ways he could torment them.

“I love my job.” He mentally patted himself on the back for joining up with the interior squad.

 

The pistol fitted snuggly in his hand would surely be enough to stop either prisoner from doing something stupid.

 

It takes a second for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the cell when he unlocks the door and steps in. The titan brat was still where he left him, pinned to the wall. But rather than the empty look he usually had, the boy was struggling against the chains and trying to speak around his metal gag, all while pointedly staring at the other prisoner.

 

She was lying face down, unmoving on the dirty stone floor.

He looks upon the women, taking in the curves of her body as she laid there. It was a shame really, she was undoubtedly attractive, even with the mark Kenny left on her, but Errol knew they couldn’t keep her. Once the brat was gone, she would no longer be of use to them.

Yet until that day came, she had to be kept alive and not _too_ badly hurt.

 

Lazily, he strolled over and poked her with his foot, “Wake up sweetheart, it’s dinner time.”

She didn’t respond.

 

“Oi, didn’t you hear me? You wanna eat or what?” he gave her a firm kick, wondering if she was sleeping.

Again, there was no reaction.

 

He felt a small spark of fear in his belly. Captain Ackerman had wanted them docile and broken, not dead. She was needed to keep the boy compliant, and if she died under his watch, Kenny would kill him.

_‘Oh shit.’_

 

He knelt down, grabbed her shoulder and pulled her around. “I swear to God, if you’re fucking me around, neither of you are eating.” Is what Errol wanted to say, but what he actually managed was “I swear to Go…”, before the ‘unconscious’ woman suddenly exploded into life.

 

Using her manacles as a club, Petra swung her arm around smashing the solid lump of iron across the guard’s face, breaking his jaw with a sickening crack. The man falls back, trying to scream through his shattered mouth and broken teeth. He wildly kicks out, catching Petra in the chest and fumbles for the pistol which had been knocked out of his hand.

Just as his fingers brush against the handle, it’s kicked away clattering across the floor. Eren can’t do much in his pinned position, but he could just about reach the gun with his leg. After this singular effort, all he could do now was watch as Petra jumps on top of the man and raises the bloody manacle above her head.

 

Errol gives a choked cry through a mouthful of blood, a desperate plea for mercy from a woman he spent the last few days torturing. A mercy he did not deserve and would not receive.

The last thing Errol ever sees is a half-starved Petra bringing the heavy, blood-splattered manacle down on his skull with all the strength she could muster. 

 

* * *

 

For the first time since her internment, Petra was glad that there was no food in her stomach, as it roiled and twisted. The sudden burst of activity and adrenaline had been almost too much for her battered body to handle, especially with the hard kick she caught to the chest.

Feeling something hot and foul rise up her throat, Petra squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head towards the door. The initial wave of sick was solely bile and acid, for any traces of food from her last meal had long since been digested. Although her shrivelled stomach may have been emptied by that first wave, it doesn’t stop her body from going through painful dry heaving, as it tries to expel fluid it simply doesn’t have.    

When the last raw contraction mercifully passes, she wipes a shaking hand across her mouth and turns back to the still guard, finally opening her eyes.

 

She immediately regretted that decision.

His face had been caved in, his skull not strong enough to resist the force of the blow and the hard stone beneath it. His fingers were still minutely twitching, his ruined brain still trying to send signals down his nervous system, as it fruitless tried to bring life back to a dying body.

 

Fighting back the urge to throw up again, Petra started to search his body for the keys to their restraints, trying to avoid the blood to little avail. By the time she pulled out the ring of keys and a knife from his inner pockets, her hands had become soaked in blood and other gory matter.

Slumping off the body, she fiddles with the keyring for few moments trying to find the right one. It takes several attempts to find the small silvery key which fitted into the keyhole of her handcuffs. They fall off with a definitive clank against the floor, freeing her hands for the first time since her capture.

She rubs at her raw wrists for a few moments, scratching at the painful abrasions from the endless rubbing of metal on flesh, before moving over to Eren.

 

It took several minutes to free Eren from his bindings. Several agonisingly slow minutes as her shaking hands, both from psychical exhaustion at the burst of activity and mental anguish at what she had just done, struggled to unlock the many restraints pinning her squad member down.

When the last chain finally gave way Eren collapsed onto his knees, no longer forced to remain in that squatted position he had been trapped in. He tears the gag from his mouth and throws it across the cell.

“Ahh fuck.” He spits out, punching the floor as the muscle cramps became too much even for his high pain threshold.

 

Out the corner of his eye, Eren can see Petra still heavily shaking and notices how pale her gaunt face had become. He had been alarmed when she had thrown up, and his concern for his squadmate was growing by the second. The only other time he had seen her like this was after the failed expedition and the death of her three friends.

“Petra,” he asks, “what’s wrong?”.

 

“I… I thought the first blow would knock him out. I didn’t want to… do that.” Her voice is so quiet Eren barely hears it. She stares dead at the wall, refusing to look at the dead guard in the middle of the cell, the pool of blood steadily growing around his ruined head.

Eren regards the body, recognising the guard as one of the particularly cruel ones. He was constantly trying to play them off against each other, making them choose who got beaten up while the other was left ‘unharmed’. Eren felt nothing but pure hatred for the man and only regretted not being able to kill the bastard himself.

“If you hadn’t, he would have killed you.” He grunted out, rubbed his legs as to try and get the blood circulating again.

 

Petra flinched at Eren’s statement. “I know that, but… all my life I believed that soldiers like us served humanity and protected people. How can I call myself a soldier if I’ve killed someone, Eren?”

 

“People like him are worse than titans, they choose to be a monster; to be evil and cruel.” Now that the tingling sensation in his legs had subsided, Eren stood up and offer Petra his hand. 

“Both of us have put down monsters for the betterment of humanity, both titans and humans. We have to; otherwise they would simply go on to hurt others, who might not be able to fight back. That’s why you can call yourself a soldier, Petra.”

 

Petra looked up at the shifter; mouth slightly agape. She accepted his offered hand, rising to her feet with Eren’s support. “You… you’ve killed someone as well?”

 

He nodded. “It was the day I met Mikasa. My father was a doctor and one day he took me with him to meet Mikasa’s family, he thought I needed some other friends my age. But when we arrived, we found the bodies of her Mum and Dad.” He felt a surge of anger rise within him, as he thought about _that_ day.

“Three scumbags had broken in, killed them and kidnapped Mikasa. Dad told me to stay there while he went to summon the MPs, but even then, I knew those corrupt bastards would take too long to arrive, so I went looking for the murderers myself.”

“I found them hiding in an old, abandoned house. They were planning on selling Mikasa into slavery because she’s half Asian and not fully Eldian like us. I killed two of the slavers, and Mikasa got the other one. They were monsters, like him. We’ve both done the world a favour.” Eren pointed at the dead guard.

 

As Petra digested this new information about her teammate, Eren had collected the pistol from across the cell. He held it up, inspecting the small single-shot weapon, trying out its weight.

He had only used a rifle a handful of times during his cadet training but assumed it works in much the same way. Deep breath, point, aim then pull the trigger.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it after all one bullet won’t do much, but having it certainly wouldn’t hurt their chances of escape.

 

 “What’s an ‘Eldian’?” Petra’s voice draws his attention away from the gun.

 

“What?”

 

“You said the slavers wanted Mikasa because she wasn’t fully ‘Eldian’ like us. What does that mean?”

 

“It means…” Eren starts before stopping abruptly, his mouth closing with an audible click. He racked his brain for the meaning behind the word but came up empty.

“I… I don’t know.”

 

He rubbed his arm, fearing he had started to lose his mind. His mouth was bone dry when he finally confessing something he had kept hidden from Petra, in fear she would think him mad.

“Ever since that man touched me, I keep seeing things. Things that don’t make sense. I saw Wall Maria, but from the outside, and I saw what he said about my father and his family. There are flashes of other things as well. Places, people, words.”

“None of it makes sense, but that was one of the words I kept hearing, over and over again.”

He decided not to tell her about the balloon he had ‘seen’ floating effortlessly in the sky despite being the size of a house. Then she really would definitely think he’d lost it; such a thing simply wasn’t possible.

 

The hand Petra placed on his shoulder pulls him from those disturbing memories.

“Hey, stay with me Eren. Once we’re free we’ll figure this all out, about your dad and these memories, okay?” she gave his shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

 

* * *

 

Despite their initial worries, the flight from the cell had been far more straightforward than they anticipated. Peeking his head out the door, Eren had expected to find himself face to face with another guard or even Kenny. But, to his relief, the whole area was abandoned.

They crept out of the cell, locking the door behind them as to hide the body should anyone come to check on him. Crouching low, the two scouts starting sneaking through the vast complex they found themselves in, firmly clasping their weapons.

Flickering wall-mounted torches lit up the corridors they moved down, casting strange twisted shadows on the walls as they passed. More than once they had been spooked by their own shadows having to clamp hands over mouths to muffle gasps, as their frayed nerves started to take its toll on them.

 

After a few minutes of wandering through the eerily deserted passages, they stumbled upon a spiral staircase, which they eagerly ascended. It was clear they were underground, so any route that led up was a route they wanted to follow. They climbed what felt like several stories before they reached a landing. Just how deep underground were they?

This new level of the complex was just as disturbingly quiet as downstairs, but they forged on none the less. As they moved onwards, they passed several rooms; sleeping quarters, a kitchen and even what looked to be a shooting range. If this was the headquarters for Kenny’s gang, then they must have been active for a long time or had a substantial source of income to have such a well-developed facility.

They could occasionally see dull candle lights escaping from under doors, or overheard soft snoring, reminding them that this place wasn’t as abandoned as it seemed. 

 

It was only after a few more minutes of directionless wandering that their streak of luck came to an end.

“Wait, stop. I hear something.” Eren grabbed Petra’s arm, stopping them dead in their tracks. Coming towards them from the darkness ahead of them was the sound of footsteps. Multiple people’s footsteps.

 

 _‘Shit!’_ Petra’s eyes dart around, surveying the area and looking for somewhere to hide from the approaching threat. There were very few options in this open passage; they could quickly retrace their steps through the compound and potentially find another route out, but then they ran the risk of getting even more lost.

For a split-second, she contemplates trying to ambush whoever is approaching but quickly dismisses that idea. Any fight in their current status would be laughably one-sided, and even though they had a pistol, it wasn’t exactly a subtle weapon.

That left only one option.

 

“Come on.” She grabbed Eren’s hand and pulled him forward. Eren started to protest about them walking _towards_ the noise but stopped when Petra grabbed the handle of a nearby door and barged through it, silently praying the room would be empty.

It wasn’t.

 

“Kenny, unless you’ve found Historia, I thought I asked not to be disturbed.” The noble from their first day of captivity sat at a large oak desk, signing something with his maimed hand. He didn’t even look up as the door clicked shut, trapping him in with the two escapees.

When no answer was forthcoming, the man puts down his quill and looks up, only to find himself staring directly down the barrel of Eren’s handgun.

“Oh.”

 

* * *

 

“Scream, and you die.” Eren pressed the pistol into the fat man’s face, fighting the urge to pull the trigger for all the suffering he had inflicted on them, both directly and indirectly.

He had been reluctant to touch the man after the first time, but fortunately, he wasn’t bombarded with any more memories when he clamped a hand over the man’s mouth. Petra stood to the side of the closed door, a white-knuckled grip on the knife just in case someone walked in.

They could hear the footsteps and the murmur of conversation growing louder as the patrol approached their hiding place.

“…nny going to be pissed.”

“Yeah, you know what the Captain thinks about failure. Normon must be shitting himself, especially after last month’s fuck up with that merchant.”

“Definitely. I’ll be surprised if he’s still alive and kicking this time tomorrow.”

The drone of conversation started to fade away again as the patrol passed the door without issue and carried on down the hallway.

 

Letting out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, Eren was finally free to turn his attention back to the man and their surroundings. The room was sparsely decorated; a single desk and chair and a small pull-out bed behind it.

The bed was messy and unmade, a sign this man had been staying in this room for some time. Several pairs of shirts and trousers and a single white robe were all laid out on it, ready to be worn when the need arose.

The desk was illuminated by a single candle that had nearly melted down to the base. Next to the man’s arm was a large leather bag that bulged out for the amount of paperwork which was stuffed inside. But it was not this that caused Eren’s eyes to widen in alarm.

It was the document the man had been signing as they entered.

 

**_The Charter of Humanity_ **

_Article 7_

_Amendment B_

_In the name of His Royal Majesty, King Fritz the Third, Ruler of the three Walls, Rightful sovereign of all Humanity and Defender of the Faith, from this day forth the organisation known as the Survey Corp is to be immediately disbanded as the third arm of Humanity’s military._

_By Royal Decree, all assets and equipment belonging to the now-defunct organisation will be divided between the remaining arms, and all non-commissioned troops will be dispersed throughout the Garrison into new squads containing no more than two ex-scouts at a time._

_All Commissioned officers of the corp, including Captains and Section Commanders, are to be immediately imprisoned pending investigation for their role in violating humanity’s Charter._

_The Commander of the corp, Erwin Smith, is to be imprisoned, interrogated and then executed for the crimes he has committed, including; Conspiracy against the Crown, Murdering a Garrison Officer, Assisting Eren Yeager in escaping Scout custody and purposefully releasing the Armoured Titan within Wall Rose._

_Any scouts who attempt to escape or resist this decree in any way are to be considered thoroughly in league with their Commander’s treason and will subsequently share the same fate._

_Signed in the best interest of Humanity by the Crown Assembly._

 

Underneath the document were five titles; Chief Advisor, Archbishop of Mitras, Minister of the Treasury, Minister of Defence and High Chancellor, but only one of these had a signature.

Next to the Chief Advisor was a name, the ink still wet from the man’s quill. The neat flicks and elegantly curved letters told of a lifetime of carefully signing official documents like this one. But Eren didn’t care about this man’s history right now, he only cared what his name was.

 

The name of the man who had caused all their suffering.

The name of the man who seemed to know more about titans than anyone else.

The name of the man whose family had been wiped out by Eren father and somehow made him see it through his father’s eyes.

 

And now he finally had it.

Rod Reiss.

 

The name causes Eren’s blood to boil until it feels like burning oil is pumping through his veins. This man, this inbred aristocratic fuck, had them tortured for days on end, forcing him to watch Petra being disfigured and beaten all because he wanted revenge for something his father had done. And now he was going after the scouts as a whole.

The Commander, Captain Levi, Hanji, Armin, Mikasa, and everyone else. This man wanted to destroy them too.

 

Eren pulls his hand away from Rod’s mouth and grabs his cropped black hair before slamming the man’s head down onto the table, hard.

“Eren!” Petra hissed out, alarmed at the noise the impact had made.

He ignored her exclamation, slamming his head down a second time before snatched up the piece of paper and tossed it towards her. She caught the offending document, and as her eyes trailed across each line what little colour remained in her face drained away.

Just how long had they been here, and what had they missed for the Government to try and disband the corp?

 

“What the fuck is that about, Reiss?” Eren spat out the name like it was poison, yanking his head back. “Trying to frame the corp for what your men did.”  

Blood pouring from his re-broken nose, Rod looked up at Eren with fearful eyes.  

 _‘Good,’_ Eren thought spitefully, _“You should be afraid, you piece of shit.’_

 

 

While Eren went about questioning Rod regarding the document, Petra started looking through his bag looking for more information regarding their regiment. The fact the decree mentioned Commander Erwin by name meant he must be still alive at least, and that hopefully meant Levi was too.

It was ironic really that the only good news they had received in all this time, came from something outlining the worst news.

 

Most of the paper she pulled out was related to Rod’s estates and other government documents, which she dumped on the floor, but there was nothing related to the corp. She dug deeper into the bag until she grabbed something that wasn’t paperwork.

When she pulled out a small glass bottle and a metal case Rod went deathly pale and lunged toward her, uncaring of the pistol held against his head. He was wildly swinging his arms, trying to snatch the objects away when Eren slammed him down on the table once more.

 

“Don’t move you piece of shit.” Eren growled out before looking at the two objects Petra held. “What’s that?”

 

Ignoring the struggling Rod, she held the sealed bottle up to the candlelight, witnessing a viscous blue liquid sloshing about inside. “It’s some kind of liquid. It’s blue.”

She turned it over and read the brown paper label. Only part of the text was legible to her, the rest was filled with symbols and markings she had never seen before. Was it another language?

“The label says ‘Armour’. I can’t read the rest.”

 

“And that?” Eren nodded toward the case, leaning more heavily on Rod as to prevent further struggling.

 

After placing the small bottle into her jacket pocket, she unclipped the metal case and gently lifted the lid. Inside was another sealed container with the same bluish liquid, this time labelled ‘Strongest’, along with a large syringe and needle.

 

Petra furrowed her brow in confusion. It was clearly an injection for the blue liquid, but what did it do? And what do the labels mean?

 

“It’s another bottle, but this one has a syringe.”

 

They looked at each other, both wondering what this stuff was and why it had caused Rod to wildly throw himself at Petra. Surely, he must have known it wouldn’t work, so what caused him to try something so recklessly stupid?

 

“What is that stuff?” Eren demanded, pressing the gun into the back of Rod’s head and gesturing toward Rod’s mutilated hand. “My father’s _friends_ did that to your hand, right? Well if you don’t talk, I’ll finish the job!”

 

After a tense few seconds, Rod relented. “God.” He whispered, almost reverently. “It’s the power to bring back a God.”

“You want to lose more fingers, Reiss? Stop speaking in riddles.”

“This mission is my destiny. I will ensure my daughter takes the founder from your body and is reborn as a God. You are nothing compared to what she will become.”

 

Eren went to smack the pistol over Rod’s head when Petra stopped him.

“Leave it Eren. He’s clearly mad.” Having finished looking through the bag and finding little else of interest, Petra abandoned the whole thing on the floor and pocketed the metal case. While Rod’s mad ramblings about a ‘God’ wasn’t informative at all, it was clear that this stuff wasn’t normal and letting him keep it wasn’t an option.

 

“We’ve already stayed here too long; they’ll soon find out we’ve escaped and will raise the alarm. We have to go.”

 

Rod piped up, realising they were about to leave. “Kenny and two dozen men stand between here and the exit. You’ll never get past them, traitors!”

Perhaps the thought of his bodyguards catching them had filled Rod with a misplaced sense of bravery, but all his outburst actually achieved was to assist Petra in deciding what to do with him.

 

“You’re right,” she admitted with a shrug. “the two of us probably won’t get past all of them.”

She grabbed Rod by the collar and hauled him up from the table. Even in her weakened state, she was far stronger than this small arsehole. He audibly gulped when Petra placed her knife against his throat.

“That’s why you’re coming with us.”

 

* * *

 

“How fucking hard is it to capture one girl?” Flecks of spittle landing on the cowering soldier’s face as Kenny the Ripper leaned over him.

Normon Nobyl was beyond scared at this point. He thought he would be ready to face Captain Ackerman’s wrath when he arrived from his failed mission, but that idea had fallen to pieces almost immediately. When Kenny saw he had return empty-handed and alone, he wasn’t just mad, he was furious.

“Please, Captain, it wasn’t my fault. The scouts… they’ve been using a body double. We’ve had reports of sightings all over the place, and when my team went after one, they were ambushed and captured.”

 

“They _what_?” Kenny’s razor-sharp reply left the area in deathly quiet, sending a shiver down the spine of everyone who heard it.

“They allowed themselves to be captured alive?” Normon could only nod his head in response, praying that Kenny’s rage would be directed at them rather than him.

He would have no such luck.

“Then what the fuck are you doing here? You ain’t half the soldier some of your team members were, so either the scouts let you go, which would mean you’re probably a traitor, or you ran, which makes you a coward. Which one is it?”

 

“I…I…” Normon took a step back, wondering if he could make it to the exit.

 

“ _I…I…_ ” Kenny repeated in a mocking tone, stepping forward and invading the space Normon had created. “I’m waiting.”

 

“Levi was there.” He blurts out, raw fear tearing the truth from his mouth. “He’s a monster, there was nothin…” Whatever else he planned on saying would be never be heard, as Kenny quickly pulled out his knife and slashed it across the Normon’s throat.

Normon collapsed to the floor, hands clawing at his opened windpipe in a futile effort to stem the bleeding.

Less than 20 seconds later, Normon Nobyl was dead. He died suffocating on his own blood.

 

“I. Do. Not. Tolerate. Cowards in my squad.” Kenny announced to his remain soldiers, who stood as still as statues, not wanting to earn the ire of their psychopathic Captain. They watched as Kenny knelt down and clean his knife with the dead man’s shirt before putting it away.

 

“Well played, Levi.” The serial killer grumbled to himself, before drawing himself up to his full height. “I’m getting sick and tired of playing cat and mouse with those titan lovers. Caven, I want you to go pay our two ‘guests’ a visit and make them sing. Enough with the light touches; rip out their tongues or gouge their eyes out if you want, I don’t care. I want to know the location of every hideout and bolthole the scouts have. We’re going to smoke those vermin out.”

“You two,” Kenny pointed at two terrified soldiers before kicking the fresh corpse. “go throw this piece of trash out.”

 

“Captain.” Caven warned quickly bring up her two pistols and pointing them down the corridor at the approaching trio.

 

Using Rod as a human-shield Petra pushed forward toward the large group of heavily armed soldiers, with Eren at her back.

This was it, there was no turning back now.

 

There was the briefest flicker of surprise on Kenny’s face before he cracked a wide grin. “Now this is interesting… how’d you wretches get out?”

He cocked his head to the side, noticing the blood on Petra’s hands and sleeves. The smile widened.

“I take it that dumbass Errol is dead then. Well damn, I didn’t think you’d have it in you. That your first time? Felt good, didn’t it?”

 

Petra’s grip on Rod’s collar tightened, the fancy material already stained from the cell guard’s blood. “Shut up. You try anything, and I’ll cut his throat,” she shouted at Kenny, bringing up the knife to show her resolve. “Show us the way out and I’ll let him live!”

 

The serial killer raised a single eyebrow at the demand. He didn’t care for Rod one bit, especially after finding out he couldn’t take and use the founding titan like he intended initially, but he continued to assist the man only because fighting with the scouts, and more specify Levi, was fun and it was the first time he had been challenged by something in years.

 

“You really need to work on your hostage-taking skills. It’s genuinely not a good idea to kill the only thing keeping you alive. Didn’t you learn anything from your time downstairs? Always have a spare.”

 

“Kenny! Stop this and free me!” Rod shouted to his ‘protector’, hoping he would come to his aid. He was thoroughly ignored by everyone present.

“Hush now Rod. Can’t you see the adults are talking?” Kenny said as if speaking to a small child.

 

Petra pressed the tip of the knife against Rod’s neck, drawing forth a small trickle of blood. “He’s important enough, especially if you serve him. Enough talk, where’s the exit?!”

 

“Bloody amateurs,” Kenny muttered aloud, barely stopping himself from laughing. He was right, this was definitely turning out to be highly amusing. “But you gotta start somewhere I suppose…”

 

After adjusting his hat with a flourish Kenny moved towards the staircase, pushing aside the soldier blocking it. He stopped on the first step and looked back over his shoulder, “Well, you coming or what? I thought you wanted out.”

 

Neither Petra or Eren actually expected Kenny to help, but from the looks of genuine surprise on his squad’s faces, and the sudden burst of struggling from their hostage, there was the smallest chance that for whatever reason he was showing them the way out.

While the whole thing screamed ‘trap’ they had few options but to follow him. His squad parted as they approached, hands resting on weapons but not drawing them. They fell in behind, keeping a reasonable distance away from Eren and the pistol he was brandishing towards them.

They climbed and walked for several minutes, listening to the offbeat tune Kenny was whistling, and the metallic clanking sound his strange 3DM gear made.

Everyone else was silent apart from Rod who had gone red in the face from his repeated shouting. “KENNY! Have you lost your mind?! I order you to stop this farce and free me! Kenny!”

 

After walking down a final long corridor, they reached a door which was different than the others. Thick metal struts lined it, crossing over one another as to reinforce the door so it couldn’t be easily broken.

In the core of the door was a large metal wheel with a keyhole in the centre. Kenny pulled a key from his pocket and inserted it into the wheel, before grabbing it and turning it with one hand.

The whole door seemed to screech like a banshee as the wheel was twisted around, the heavy lock starting to give way. After a few painfully loud rotations there was a loud click, and Kenny took a step back and leant against the wall beside it.

 

“There you go, the way out.” He rapped his knuckles against the door with a smirk. “I even unlocked it for ya. Go on, your freedom awaits.”

 

“Move out the way,” Eren demanded, worried that Kenny might lunge at them when they passed.

Kenny did so with a shrug, sliding along the wall and giving them a wide opening. He was still smirking even as they moved towards it.

 

With a shaky hand, Petra pulls the door open, bracing herself for the blinding light of the sun. Instead, it was dark, perhaps even darker than it had been inside.

 _‘Is it night-time?’_ she thinks to herself, taking a step forward into the dark unknown.

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust but when they do, she looks around with growing horror and dread.

_‘No…’_

 

Unaware Petra had stopped, Eren bumped into her back nearly knocking her over. “Petra, what…” he span round wondering what had caused her to halt their escape. He sees it immediately and his jaw drops.

They both look around, dumbfounded by what they are seeing. What the hell was this place?

 

Mocking laughter draws their attention back to the building they had been held in. Kenny was standing in the doorway, arms swung out wide gesturing to the vast cave network around them.

“Welcome to the underground city. The biggest shithole on earth.”

 

He and his squad filled out of the building, standing in a line in front of them. Now their weapons were drawn.

 

“Tell me,” Kenny asked with an insufferable grin “what was the next step in your masterplan? Get outside, turn into a titan then haul ass back to your corp, with him as a hostage?” Rod looked at Kenny with pleading eyes.

 

That was pretty much their plan, but they could have never anticipated this. They had heard stories of the underground city, but none had done this place justice.

A vast open cavern supported by gargantuan stone columns which twisted into the ceiling like giant fingers. The lights of a thousand candles and small fires illuminated the city, and the natural crystals studded across the cave reflected the light and glistened like stars in the night.

Hastily assembled shacks and brick houses were squeezed together in a desperate attempt to house the vast population of this bizarre metropolitan, forming into clusters of shantytowns each centred around a church spire.

Not even this place had escaped the reach of the wall cult. 

 

There would be nowhere for Eren’s titan to escape to or hide, and worst, an enclosed urban area such as this was the perfect environment for 3DM gear.

 

Taking their similar expression of shock and dismay as a yes, Kenny wiped a fake tear of laughter away.

“Well, this is just a real piece of bad luck for you two, isn’t it? Oh well, now it's my turn to make demands. You killed one of my men, and while I don’t really care that he’s dead, I’ve got a reputation to uphold. Only I get to kill these fuckers when they fail.” He gave a ‘friendly’ pat on Caven’s shoulder.

“Now, let that coward go and get down on your knees right now, and in return, I’ll only cut off one of her limbs for this escape attempt.” He pointed at Petra with a sadistic smile, “I’ll even let you pick which one, to show my admiration at the sheers balls you two had to even try.”

“Or you can go ahead and transform, the only way out of this shithole is via the tunnels and a titan won’t fit through those. Destroy as much of the city as you’d like, you’d probably be doing the world a favour killing some of the scum that lives here, but once you’ve exhausted yourself and are no longer able to move, I’ll cut you out and drag you both back here. Then, I’ll cut off all her limbs and feed them to you one by one, titan boy.”

“Your choice.”

 

Both of them knew there was no choice there, there may be no place for them to run or hide, but they had already decided they were never going back in that cell.

They’d rather die.

 

“Fuck you.” Eren spat out and bite down on his hand.

 

 

 

Across the desolate and impoverished city, hundreds of people were momentarily blinded by a flash of light so intense it lit up the entire cavern. For some, it was the closest thing to sunlight they had ever seen.

Blinking away their temporary blindness, the denizens of the underground looked toward the source in stunned disbelief. From the starving poor to the vicious mob bosses, everyone watched the impossible sight of a titan, mankind’s greatest enemy, rising up from a wall of steam.

With one hand cupped to its chest, the Rogue Titan threw its head back and roared.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there we go, out of the frying pan and into the fire for Petra and Eren. I hope this chapter was worth the wait but I can say with absolute certainty I am never doing another chapter this long again. Damn near killed me!
> 
> I want to give a special shoutout to the AM discord, whose encouraging words (and patience with my complaining) motivated me not to give up. Love you guys!
> 
> I'm going to be focusing on finishing off my AM week prompts (only got 2 atm, not sure if I'll be able to make more) so next chapter maybe a few weeks at least.

**Author's Note:**

> Well I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you did (or didn't) please leave a comment if you have any feedback/criticism/ideas or anything really.
> 
> I don't have a lot of time to write normally so updates could be erratic, but if you guys seem to like it I will try extra hard to get the next chapter out.


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